[Yusha]

Hey guys, this is the thread after my heart. I could do with some advice on how to keep my kids busy since we cannot let them go out of the house to play in the society area or anywhere else.

I have three boys (triplets) almost 3 years old. They will be 3 on July 7th. Since I am WFH I am spending quite a lot of time with them and really enjoying it. Im reading them stories, playing some brain developing games with them and a bit of puzzle making. But I want to pick your brains for more ideas on what else we can involve them with.

This forum has a lot of parenting experience and I would like to learn from your experience!!

Since they are cooped up at home all day long and with all the energy they have, i have no idea where these guys get their energy from, they have become very naughty and slightly destructive.

They have also started having physical fights with each other over little things, which is something new. They are boys and they will have tiffs, i understand, but it has become too much recently.

So i can do with some ideas!!

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by TejasKinger

Curiosity Stream is a great service to sign up for....

This is great even for grown-ups. Thanks for the recommendation.

[aLY]

Nice Thread! Keep flowing your ideas. It's hard to keep them engaged with new activities every now and then, especially in between your work from home schedule.

My kid, Eshan baked his first cake yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPkjUqwVjQQ

[gautam109]

Khan Academy has some great content too. My 5 year old loves it and feels like a quasi-school session to him. Some degree of "regularity" in his life. We let him spend an hour - 90 mins on it every day (so as to limit "screen time").

@sgm - I can see your kiddo building a structure with Jenga blocks, I guess? That's another fave activity of my kid of late. Occupies him for half an hour or so. With flip side that if the structure falls he gets really upset!

Planning to show him how to make houses / structures with cards once Jenga gets boring.

Jigsaws & Lego kits are great "solo-activity" time killers too. Luckily we have a couple of those and enjoys them when other stuff gets boring.

[ankan.m.blr]

Got this as an whatsapp forward. Hope this is not OT.
=========================
Since many kids are/will be home from school, sharing an awesome list of ideas from a parent who homeschools.

Online resources:
- BrainPop
- Curiosity Stream
- Tynker
- Outschool
- Udemy
- iReady
- Beast Academy (Math)
- Khan Academy
- Creative Bug
- Discovery Education

YouTube Channels:
- Crash Course Kids
- Science Channel
- SciShow Kids
- National Geographic Kids
- Free School
- Geography Focus
- TheBrainScoop
- SciShow
- Kids Learning Tube
- Geeek Gurl Diaries
- Mike Likes Science
- Science Max
- SoulPancake

Lots of board games, library books (and Kindle), tinkering/upcycling with household junk, etc.
Some resources to help with kids at home:

*Scholastic has created a free learn-from-home site with 20+ days of learning and activities.

https://classroommagazines.scholasti...arnathome.html

*Pretend to travel the world..Go on a virtual tour of these 12 famous museums.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/att...-virtual-tours

*This is the awesome free curriculum that we use. Everything from preschool activities to 12th grade is here!

https://allinonehomeschool.com/

*List of thinking games by grade: https://allinonehomeschool.com/thinking/

**More awesome free learning websites that we like to use**

https://www.starfall.com/h/

https://www.abcya.com/

https://www.funbrain.com/

https://www.splashlearn.com/

https://www.storylineonline.net/

https://pbskids.org/

https://www.highlightskids.com/

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

https://www.coolmath4kids.com/

http://www.mathgametime.com/

https://www.uniteforliteracy.com/

http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.asp

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/

https://www.switchzoo.com/

https://www.seussville.com/

https://www.turtlediary.com/

https://www.e-learningforkids.org/

Please feel free to share this with anyone who you think may benefit from this.

[JithinR]

Not married and no kids (which is fortunate, I can barely maintain my own sanity in this lockdown) but for those who do please try typing an animals name in Google (like lion, tiger etc).

In the search results, there is an option to view the animal in 3d. Apparently, you can also 'View the animal in your surroundings' using your camera (I don't get that option on my Asus Android).

But for those with kids (and an Android or iOS phone) maybe the kids would like an animal in their boring living room.

Source: Probably some parent at the end of his wits on my WhatsApp biking group.

[glovins2004]

Much needed thread in this challenging time. it’s a tedious task to keep kids away from screen (Not realistic as they can’t step outside) but minimize screen time as much as possible. It’s easier said than done, I tried my best but not successful especially during weekdays being held up with back to back calls. Scheduling day to day activities might help in this new normal, some resources below.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/19/h...ess/index.html

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-...746-2020-03-23

https://www.becomingminimalist.com/s...time-for-kids/

[aniketvu]

Given the complete lack of physical activity, we have started doing exercise sessions of 20 minutes or so twice a day. There are a lot of videos on youtube for children exercises. We let the kids select the video they want to follow and sometimes join them in the exercises. Helps them get some pent up energy out of the system.

We are also trying to involve kids in the household activities like making some meals, especially simply stuff like sandwiches and different preparations of eggs and sweeping and cleaning their own room.

My daughter likes to make youtube videos and we are encouraging her to think up ideas and have introduced my son to scratch to try and learn something new.

Have to appreciate my kids school where the teachers are actually calling up individual kids and talking to them and asking them what they have been doing and giving advise. Kids seem to respond to teachers better than parents sometimes.

Its still early days into the lockdown. We will all have to explore new ideas to keep the kids engaged.

[motorworks]

My 7 year old son is just crazy about Lego, and that too only about Legos which end up having wheels! Over the last 3-4 years we have bought him many Legos, and now all the parts are mixed in couple of boxes. So we thought now is the time to start building these again, one by one. So my wife and myself just help him with the parts since they are all mixed now, and he does the assembling of Lego on his own based on the instructions.

The most difficult part for my wife and myself is to find the right parts in a sea of Legos! And it gets very hard if there is a part that is not too common to find!

[S_U_N]

Does anyone know of a good free and online platform to have a private housie/ tambola so that children and their friends can play privately?

[Anduril]

Since skies are very clear these days even in cities like Blr, if interested in astronomy and star gazing, download and open this app “SkyView”, go to terrace and point it to any star/star-like object. It’ll show the constellation, star/planet name etc and present the entire constellation as an overlay o the night sky.
Me and my daughter use it every evening these days. She doesn't understand constellation concept yet but likes to view it like these.

There is another app called "PhotoPills" that can be used to track milky-way as an overlay on the night sky. Handy for photographers looking to make a milky way image on a really-clear sky. Ofcourse you need to be in a some place outside city-limits for that to eliminate light pollution.

Very cool to see the use of AR in this way

[ast.ggn]

My kid's school has started virtual classes from today. Students are required to join via Zoom and teachers are presenting their own respective curriculum. A good initiative I would say, will keep kids busy apart from covering the academic backlog .

[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by ast.ggn

My kid's school has started virtual classes from today. Students are required to join via Zoom and teachers are presenting their own respective curriculum. A good initiative I would say, will keep kids busy apart from covering the academic backlog .

That is the necessary step. With current scenario, all schools must ramp up their Infra in such a way that they can initiate online classes. A good learning for schools as well to be ready for such unforeseen circumstances when children couldn't go to the school.

On a lighter note - Current generation kids got early chance of experiencing 'Work From Home'

[sindabad.sailor]

Schools in Netherlands too have been shifted to home schooling for at least 3 weeks. The schools here are almost on GCSE timeline so a lot of schooling still left prior summer holidays kick in.

Schools teachers are trying to set good amount of homeschooling content and lot of websites I came across in this thread are already incorporated.
Schooling from home is in itself a challenge for parents. Add to that, I have moved to teaching role recently and hence trying to make a giunea pig out of her.

Rushed to purchase micro:bit kit for her as social distancing looked impending here. During my time in UK, had heard that once a kids enter 7th std, they are entitled for a free set of this from UK government.

Nice platform for kids to get acquainted with electronics, simple coding using python. Needless to say that I am using it more than her. She likes it. However we are trying to limit it as she is spending 3-4 hrs already on laptop daily.

https://www.amazon.in/STARTO-Starter...5591380&sr=8-3

[Chris_Xtreme]

I have a daughter (10) and a son (4). And schools here in New South Wales have moved to homeschooling for the last 2 weeks. Kudos to the teachers who have done a wonderful job in the Google Classroom App which has schedules for all classes throughout the day (9am-3pm) including the required breaks followed by activities / assignments to be submitted end of the day. She is enjoying the same. She has also started to learn basic cooking and baking. She prepared us a yummy Stuffed Mushroom yesterday for lunch. The rest of the time, we play board games and watch movies in Netflix / Amazon Prime / Disney+. My son who usually goes to day care is too bored to stay home since he loves outdoors. We take him to the near by park for an evening walk and tried sending him to day care 1 day a week. Waiting for the Covid-19 situation to be back to normal soon so we can get back our routine.