Random Observation/Comment #746: It doesn’t feel like the year has started for me yet. Quality time is tiring, but pretty awesome.
Why this List?
Covid sucks. Luckily, omicron has lower hospitalization even though it’s spreading like crazy through kids right now. Expecting more quarantine weeks for different parents. Since we’re stuck at home, here’s how we inject some random activities for Evie between her binge watching of Gabby’s Dollhouse.
- Whiteboard exercise – ABCs upper and lower case. I try to do this a few times a week.
- Whiteboard exercise – Numbers and reading the digital clock. Simple math drawing different animals.
- Whiteboard drawing – Take turns completing a drawing – ex. “let’s draw a Christmas tree” – start with outline and take turns with drawing ornaments, presents, star, etc
- Lego bricks – Step-by-step building of her Christmas presents (Thank you, Bak Bak!)
- Jigsaw Puzzles – These 50 piece puzzles are a great way to teach different states or match colors
- Drawings for Mommy – “Let’s draw a card for mom” – Pencil tracing of a note and drawing of a animal. Hang on the fridge.
- Matching card game – Great memory game for cards matching. I need to get her into playing Uno.
- Clean up – This is one of my wife’s favorite games. Just put on the “clean up” song and start to put toys away.
- Snow shoveling helper – She’s not really helping that much, but I’ll shovel a pile together into a snowman.
- Cooking together – The process is more fun than the result. Pancakes and anything with dough is great for some mixing and teaching the steps. She also over salts everything.
- Couch fort – Our couch has been a fort for the whole week. It’s a good hiding place for hide and seek.
- Yoga and push ups – If you’re going to put on TV, at least make it a fun yoga or joint exercise. Whenever I do push-ups, she loves to sit on my back.
- Tea time – The tea set is at least a 15 minute distraction. Set up those stuffed animals and placemats and then clean up time afterwards.
- Story cave – Not exactly covid friendly, but we would tell stories under the blanket cave. I ask her to make up a story by asking who’s in the story, where does it take place, what’s the conflict, and how it resolves.
- Evie on my head – This takes some strength, but it’s a good way to just clean up and walk around the house while she’s sitting on my shoulders. At least I know where she is at all times.
- Play with kitties – Gives the kitties them some exercise and it’s a nice bonding time teaching Evie to be gentle.
- Build a city – She’s got a lot of toys that likely fit into some city scape scene. Start with a magne-tiles tower and expand into a train set with cars driving between boxes. Super fun.
- Camping setup – You don’t need to do the full tent, but even just sleeping bags are fun for a little bit. Blow up mattress has been thoroughly jumped on.
- Dice game – Larger numbers win and helps with adding. I used to play this when I was younger and then learned it was a popular drinking game. We could also play 5-10-15-20.
- Baking soda science – It’s never too early to make a volcano with all that play dough and kinetic sand. Also works with Pepsi and mentos.
- Cut and paste – Drawing some shapes and cutting them out is a surprisingly time consuming activity that teaches precision. You can combine this with making cards. Thank you and birthday cards for her friends are a great activity.
- Make Popsicles – Requires some wooden sticks, but toothpicks will do. More or less just making ice.
- Play a game from the Disney+ show “Bluey” – Keepie Uppie with the balloon is a classic. Daddy robot is also a fun one. We’ve also done the magic xylophone for freezing.
- Hide and seek – She’s so bad at hiding that it’s hilarious. She’ll just giggle in her hiding place.
- Post-it notes fun – Post-it notes are super versatile. You can draw shapes on them and stick them in different rooms to match shapes. Stick them in weird spots like under tables or on the side of furniture. You can also just make words sticking them to a glass door.
- Musical instrument or video games or both – I need to get Rock Band again and start playing some tunes. I think it can help with timing and hand-eye coordination. Maybe good exercise to do some dance dance revolution. Nostalgia is great. Those who know me would understand that I just had to buy some DDR pads.
- Painting a cardboard box – Painting in general can be messy, but you can get some happy accidents and teach some color coordination.
- Trick shots – We have some dart games or general ping pong ball throw into a red solo cup. I think it helps with visualization of making a shot.
- Super fun dance time – We’ve got a big Playlist for this, but you can’t beat “New Light” by John Mayer.
- List making – Prepping her to continue the lists of 30 thought process and tradition.
~See Lemons in Quarantine
