Here are 30 free activities to keep kids busy during quarantine. Free editable homeschool schedule and brain break activities to keep them moving and learning.
The coronavirus quarantine has closed down schools across the globe. Parents are now forced to navigate virtual learning with their kids and it isn’t as easy as many expected. Long days of virtual meetings and assignments can be frustrating for children and parents. I put together a Free Editable Homeschool Schedule and 30 Days of Brain Break Activities for my family and I’m sharing it with you.
Coping with Quarantine
Adjusting to a new routine can be hard on everyone. We’re all used to doing our normal activities at work, school, or wherever we normally are. But being placed into quarantine has changed all of that. This can be a stressful time for everyone, including the kids.
Activities they normally completed with their teacher alongside their peers have now turned into virtual assignments. Instead of completing assignments at a desk in their classroom, they’re now working at the kitchen counter or somewhere else in their house. Everyone is displaced and thrown off schedule.
I made a Quarantine Homeschool Schedule for my kids to help restore some routine and normalcy in our house. It’s free and editable and I ended up adding some other goodies to it as I kept making things for my own family. It has helped a ton to have a predictable routine and has made us all much more productive. Since it’s editable, you can type in your own time slots and activities for whatever works best for your family.
Click here to get my FREE Editable Quarantine School Schedule. If you’re looking for a free activity calendar, read on!
Schooling at Home
All of these school assignments, virtual meetings, and online projects makes for a long day of sitting and staring at screens. Before we started our “homeschooling,” I knew we would need some activities to break up our day. I knew we’d need to keep things light and fun (and not overwhelming and stressful).
On my Homeschooling Schedule, I included breaks in the day to allow the kids to stretch and relax in between assignments. But what would we do during those breaks? The same thing every time? We needed some fun ideas to look forward to, so I made up a 30 Day Brain Break Calendar to fill in those blanks.
Brain Break Activities for Kids
My Brain Break Activity Calendar has helped my kids cope with the quarantine. It provides 30 days of little activities to get the kids moving, creating, and learning. We use them to break up the day and keep the children laughing and having fun.
The Brain Break Calendar Activities only require materials that you probably already have in your home. Better yet, most of them require little to no effort on your part at all. A few of them are a little more involved (like baking cookies. Probably best to supervise that one), but they are all pretty easy and lots of fun.
The activities include things like jumping jacks and calling a family member. The kids will be drawing in the backyard, planting seeds, and reading with a flashlight. Instead of zoning out with video games and TV, these activities will keep them active, moving, and thinking. They’ll be getting enough screen time as it is with their virtual learning assignments, so these activities will help them unplug for a bit.
Low Prep and Easy Activities
Low prep and no easy. Extra bonus for activities that are NO prep and easy. I made sure that most of the activities on my Free Brain Break Activity Calendar fit that description. So in other words, they’ll keep your kids busy (and not YOU). These activities will give you time to sneak away and get a few things done. Or relax.
Most of the activities can be completed in about 20 minutes, just enough time to refresh and shake off any stress before getting back to work. A few activities are a little shorter or longer, but you can adjust for your child’s needs. For example, if your child finishes an exercise activity quickly, slow them down by having them sing a silly song in between each set.
Stay busy. Have fun.
That’s the motto of the Brain Break Calendar. My kids are literally upstairs building a fort as I type this. They’ve decided not to do the activities in order and instead just mark them off as they complete them. As long as they’re busy and off the screens, that’s cool with me. They plan do more than one activity from the calendar today. Also fine with me. The point of the calendar was to keep them busy, creating, thinking and learning and it’s doing exactly that. Click here to get my Free Brain Break Activity Calendar.
Exceptional Thinkers Newsletter
So hang in there. This is all brand new and confusing and a little bit scary. Quarantine is tough on all of us, but we can do hard things. Right? We got this. Chellsea from Metrodeals gives a few suggestions about how to make the most out of quarantine. We need all the tips we can get! Share your tips in the comments below to help out fellow readers (and me)!
Grab my Free Editable Homeschool Schedule and Free Brain Break Activity Schedule to establish a more structured routine at home. Hopefully those will help keep everyone a little more sane. Let me know how you’re doing in the comments or connect with me on social media (Exceptional Thinkers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest).
Other posts from Exceptional Thinkers that you may like:
- Lemon Volcano Experiment
- Germ Experiment
- How Many Life Skills Can You Teach in 5 Minutes a Day?
- Homemade Play Dough Recipe
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Keep teaching. Keep learning.
~Christy from Exceptional Thinkers
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