Last week we covered fun activities for couples to do during quarantine. But what if you are a couple quarantined with children? Your kids, your nieces and nephews, small cousins, etc. Maybe even your grandkids! We don’t know about your life; any option is possible.
Maybe it’s Week 9,000 of quarantine and the kiddos have finally gotten sick of watching Frozen on the iPad. They have run out of songs to sing about candy. Their President Warren G. Harding action figure (with kung-fu grip and six different catchphrases) vexes them. Now they lounge around like a languid aristocrat, always fainting onto sofas and fanning themselves with palm fronds. How can you make these sluggish children have fun again?
Or maybe it’s Week 9,000 of quarantine and they’ve somehow become more energetic. They’ve learned how to make instant coffee when you’re not looking. They do more jumping jacks than a Marine at basic training. They’re screaming lines from cartoons while rolling down the stairs. How do you channel this chaos into something more reasonable?
Don’t worry! Here are some ideas!
Massive Blanket Fort – If children love anything, it’s construction. They’re always in the sandbox with their bulldozers and trucks. If you see a group of kindergarteners huddled together, we guarantee they’re talking about cement, drywall, iron girders, zoning permits, and drainage. While your child might not be old enough to work on a real build site, you can help them build a blanket fort at home!
Find a big room and clear the appropriate amount of space. Then, gather up as many chairs, blankets, and pillows as you can. You can do the “Big Tent” technique, where there’s as much open space in the blanket fort as possible. Perfect for bringing as many superfluous toys inside as they want!
Or your child might prefer “The Labyrinth”, where the blanket fort is more like a narrow tunnel for them to wriggle through, like a mole person. There are a lot of things to do in a blanket fort: watch movies, have a camp out, tell ghost stories. You can even leave it up for days at a time! Maybe this is just what your living room looks like now.
Homemade Pool – Go outside. Feel that? It’s hot! You should make me a cold drink while I write this next part. Thank you.
It’s almost summer time! Your kids will want to go to the pool. But there’s no pool to go to anymore. It done dried up. The rivers are flowing backwards. The ocean is closed for business after forty golden years of serving the community. And aboveground pools are a pain in the neck to assemble. So where are your children going to cool off? Simple!
Get a large, empty, plastic storage tub and fill it up with the hose! If your child is the right size, they’ll love spending the afternoon in the luxurious crate. Put a toy pirate ship in there. Sink a toy castle. Look, kids, there’s Atlantis! Forget about the tub in your yard for two weeks, and then come back to discover the thriving ecosystem growing within. The world is full of wonder, even in quarantine.
Art Class – Don’t forget to enrich your child culturally. Give them some paint and paper and have them paint a portrait of you relaxing on the couch. Pour yourself a drink. Kick up that recliner. Turn on the TV. The more details, the more your child has to practice capturing.
If you have multiple children, take this time to observe their different artistic sensibilities. Perhaps your son Gronthon is a realist, accurately rendering every line of your snoring face as you nod off to The Jeffersons. Whereas your daughter Heltbein is more of a surreal impressionist. She just dumps paint onto the canvas and says it captures your essence. Let the kids argue about different schools of aesthetics while you enjoy a nice long nap. If they’re bickering about art, they can’t make you get up to cook them pancakes.
Bike Ride – I was never brave enough to ride a bike. I got one for Christmas, rode it a total of four blocks six months later, and then put it back in the garage. I continued my trusty method of “walking everywhere.” But perhaps your child is a daredevil, who enjoys going more than 0.1 mile per hour! Take them to an empty parking lot to cycle around! Join them on your bike, or just sit and watch as they try to navigate the parking blocks and potholes. Will Gronthon be able to jump your car? We won’t find out, because you’ve fortunately stopped him.
Race Track – Let your yard grow wild for three or four weeks. Then mow the kids a race track for them to run up and down. Turn it into an obstacle course! Jump over a rake here, go around a bucket there. Maybe you “make some rain” with the hose at one section of the track. Cut it into a shape or pattern that only makes sense when you look at it from the roof, like the Nazca lines of South America. When the neighbors ask why your yard looks like that, just tell them, “Because I’m a good parent.”
Kids can’t get enough of running around, so you wanna have them do it outside, away from your fragile porcelain doll collection. You wouldn’t want your kids to break Tabitha or Bessie. The spirits inside the dolls are mad enough at you as it is!
Trickery – Your kids have had a long day of building a fort, splashing, painting, biking, and backyard track practice. They’ll need a nap. But they won’t want to take a nap. Children don’t enjoy sleeping until they turn 13. What are you to do?
Deception, that’s what! They sit down to watch their favorite show, Family Matters. Steve Urkel bursts onscreen and says, “Steve Urkel a su servicio. ¿Hice yo eso?”
The children are livid. Why is Steve speaking Spanish? The answer is, you’ve changed the settings on the TV. But don’t tell them that! Say the TV is fine, they’re just confused because they’re tired and should get some rest. They’ll eagerly settle down for a nap, in hopes of waking up and being able to understand Señor Urkel once again.
If you have any more ideas, please, please, please let us know. Quickly! Our kids just woke up from their nap and I can’t figure out how to turn the TV back to English! They’re chanting “Urkel” and banging pots and pans! Uh-oh. My daughter, little Junston, is going for my porcelain dolls with some scissors!! That’s all for this week!!!
