Continuing your child’s learning journey from home can be a challenge, especially when space is limited, and your usual familial support system is no longer available. Being indoors for an extended period of time can also be mentally taxing on both you and your child.
In these extraordinary times, let us take a breather. Simulate going on outdoor adventures within the safety of your home with your child and inspire a learning and bonding experience through playing pretend and more.
1. Indoor Camping
Transform your living room into a jungle by reimagining blue construction paper as rivers and chairs as trees. Go further and convert your sofa into a makeshift fort or use a bed sheet as the covering of a camping tent that is supported by brooms and mops or chairs.
After setting up your tent or fort, you can gather around an imaginary camp fire to tell eerie tales, play board games and sing merry songs. This fireplace can be designed from paper or cloth and can also be projected as a video from your phone.
When hunger sets in, make sure you have prepared enough snacks such as hotdogs, burgers, hot chocolate and juices. At the end of the day, you may even need to take your child’s mattress out when they insist on sleeping ‘outside’ in their ‘tent’.
There is no wrong or right way to enjoy a day of camping out of the living room. What is important is that you and your child stay safe and have plenty of laughs.
2. Dining Out Within
Public restaurants and eateries may only cater to takeaways and deliveries at the moment but that shouldn’t stop you from dining out in your very own ”home-restaurant”. Convert your kitchen and dining area into an eatery by assigning roles such as guest, waiter and chef to yourself, your child and other family members.
Together with your child, create a menu that is full of favourite foods and delights. You may even take this a step further by whipping up dishes that challenge your child’s Maths skills as he or she navigates a new recipe.
Explaining how food changes with temperature or how certain foods can help our body stay healthy provide great lessons in science. While cooking with your child, practise new vocabulary as you describe how the food looks, feels, and tastes.
Take this activity further by re-decorating the dining area to look or feel like your favourite restaurant. When the meals are ready, make believe that they are guests in your restaurant and engage with them as how a patron and a waiter would interact in a dining environment. Interchange these roles so that on another occasion, you are the patron and your child is the waiter. Don’t worry too much about the mess because tidying up is also part of the play.
Role-playing not only develops your child’s imagination and creativity but it also strengthens their ability to relate to others and in turn, aids in developing social and emotional skills. So, enjoy eating out, indoors.
3. Virtual Tours Galore
If you and your child are fans of zoos and museums, here is your opportunity to travel across the globe while remaining indoors. Internationally renowned attractions such as Paris’ Lourve and Italy’s Vatican Museum offer virtual tours that you can take from the comforts of home.
Click here to explore the Baltimore-based National Aquarium or go diving with sharks from the Monterey Bay Aquarium through a series of livestream videos, virtual tours and more.
Take advantage of this time to bond with your child on a deeper and more significant level through the gaining and imparting of knowledge from these zoos, museums, national landmarks and more. Switch up screen-time with meaningful conversations and discussions about what each of you have learnt from the experience.
For a more immersive and hands-on experience, create art projects with your child by drawing what was the most inspiring item from the virtual visits. You can even hold your child’s very own art exhibition when you have enough pieces to display.
Celebrate the Joys of Learning and #StayHome
As we adapt to changes and new routines, your child’s learning and developmental journey marches on. Stay organised and ahead by planning a flexible schedule that suits your work and your child’s learning from home itineraries.
Click here or the link below for a collection of activities and guides that you can use to help you create more meaningful moments with the family and have fun while enjoying this extra time with your child.
