It's been about 2 weeks since the UK government ordered schools to be closed and since then we've all had our little ones at home with us. Sure the first week was a lot of fun (with a mild bit of panic) as we all became school teachers, friends, entertainers and more for our little ones. By the second week the novelties have worn off and uh-oh... the kids (and you) are bored of your new school curriculum and need inspiration. Well never fear! While I'm not a parenting expert by any means, having two kids myself as well as entertaining them constantly may help give me a little insight into some fun ways to keep your little ones occupied in the least stressful way possible.
Education
If your school is anything like my kids they will have been given lots of worksheets, tasks and other things constantly emailed over to you to help them learn. Thing is, if your children are like my little boy, those worksheets last 20 minutes a day and they are all completed. But don't worry there are lots of other fun lessons you can do! Over the last few weeks I've been looking at different experiments you can do at home that are easy and I've put a couple below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLH_kTtGoi0 - music science experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdcRkwhkpsA - classic oil and water experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Abx8b6iNU - Paper plane challenge
And there are so much more. There are loads more as well. Other fun things you could do are make your own catapults, make your own towers out of junk. Or even something simple as building a ramp for toy cars. It's really up to you.
There also lots of other fun things you can do. One of the key things to mention is that one of the benefits of the lockdown (if there really are any) is that you can use this opportunity to teach your kids other things they don't get to do in school. A couple of days ago I spent 10 minutes with the kids teaching them how we check the oil, water etc on the car. Sure it's not part of the curriculum, but it's a great way to show them something that will get them interested in other fields - such as engineering. Sometimes getting them involved in what you're doing can teach them more than you can possible imagine.
Outside the curriculum
So what other things can you do? Once the school work is over it's really easy to stick them in front of the TV. But there are still more fun things to do which are really easy as well. And you don't need to be skilled to do them all. To start with I've been putting up daily challenges on my facebook page for you all to do. From simple quizzes to making your own videos these things are a great way to think of something different to do each day. You can find them all here - facebook.com/themagicdaveuk
So extra fun things you can do are:
- Build a fort in your lounge. It's a great fun way to teach them construction and design skills, as well as giving them something really fun to do too. I'm currently writing this on my couch as my little ones are both asleep on the floor in a den they have made using chairs, blankets, airers and more.
- Create your own dioramas. You can make a scene out of Jurassic park, a Lego village or try and recreate a scene from your favourite book.
- If you have a garden you can make your own sports day! Egg and spoon races, three legged races etc.
- You can always try and make your own films. There are really easy options using apps on your phone that take a little bit of creativity for your kids, but a lot of fun as well. One of my favourites to do is backwards videos where you record a video and run it backwards. You can make some really fun "magic" videos.
You could also do stop gap animation where you take lots of photos and move the characters in the image a little bit to create an animation when it's made in a film.
Another good thing that is currently happening is that a lot of people, myself included are doing free shows online. There's a lot of creative fresh shows out there that are really easy to access my live shows can be found on www.facebook.com/themagicdaveuk. I'm currently putting on shows twice a week to help keep your ones entertained. On Wednesdays at 2PM we have a live magic show where I do some great magic with some fun characters joining me too. And of course on Fridays myself and Charlie the Cheetah are reading bedtime stories - well I say reading... Charlie does think he can take over.
Oh and before I forget to mention all the shows I'm doing are also being put on Youtube as well here - https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMagicDUK
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Finally I just wanted to add that I'm going to update this whenever I can to add more things as and when I think of them, but of course for now you can still check out my daily challenges on my facebook page.
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