[sanjaykk]

With school vacations starting early and no outdoor activities (like summer camps etc.), what are we BHPians doing to keep the kids engaged?

For my 11yr old, we finally began teaching him how to read and write in his mother tongue. This was long pending.
Other than that, he has a couple of books that he's reading. Even with that, there's still a lot of free time and he ends up in front of the TV which we'd like to avoid.

PS: @Mods, does this warrant a new thread?

[GTO]

Originally Posted by sanjaykk

PS: @Mods, does this warrant a new thread?

You bet! Moving your post to a new thread. Thanks .

[speedmiester]

A very apt thread at the moment.
Both my wife and I are WFH and this means engaging my 3 year old at these difficult times.
Luckily I got my parents here before the lockdown, they are able to manage him. Lots of toys and couple hours of classic cartoons keeps him engaged. Evening I talk him downstairs for a quick ride on his electric scooter for 30mins (with all precautions).
This has been the scenario for the past 20 days since his day care closed on 9th March. Will have to keep up with it for the next 21 days.

[NPV]

It's a very different situation for us. Daughter's class X board exams were put off mid way and the rescheduled dates haven't been announced. This has disrupted the flow and mindset with regard to preparations for the examinations. I'm sure it's quite stressful from the child's perspective as well with the ambiguity this brings especially with respect to admissions, entrance tests, what lies ahead for them in terms of academics.

For now, she is taking a break and actually enjoying it by watching movies, listening to music and indulging in her favourite hobbies like drawing and painting. She is also helping us with household chores and wants to learn some basic cooking/baking in the coming days.

She plans to get back to the study routine after a week.

[rajesh1868]

Amar chithra Katha and Tinkle are offering free subscription for a month in their respective apps. All titles are free.

To get access to the free subscription, users just need to go to the Amar Chitra Katha subscription page (http://bit.ly/ACK1Month). Users then just need to fill in their Name, Email ID, set up a password, agree to the terms and privacy policy and then click 'Enter.'

For subscribing to Tinkle comics, users need go to the Tinkle subscription page (http://bit.ly/Tinkle1Month) and follow the same steps as on Amar Chitra Katha subscription page in order to gain their free access. ACK Media acquired the Tinkle brand in 2007.

src - https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/c...vid-19-2196905

I tried ACK and getting all the titles. Kids are enjoying. First need to register in the provided links and then download the respective apps. login with the id you created.

[ast.ggn]

What we are doing is as below:
• Byju's has made app free till end of April, why not make use of it? She spends some time daily reading various topics over there. She does this on her own, without us asking her to do this. (I am not associated with any app).
• Improve her hand writing skills, she writes a few pages daily. This was a suggestion by her school.
• We take turns to play games with her such as chess, chequers, reversi.
• She lends a helping hand to her mother in keeping the house tidy.
• Kid movies on streaming sites.
• Taking care of pet (in case you have). We have a furry guy in family and she does his grooming, cleaning etc.
• There are couple of general knowledge apps on play store. I took the subscription long ago, it is being put to use now.
• Little gardening in our backyard.
• She likes to paint and now she has lot of spare time to let the ideas flow.
• Any other hobby your kid is interested in. Reading is another good thing I can think of and it is quite addictive.

[jayguar]

A wonderful thread. It has become more of a challenge to get the kids to not watch TV for hours. One good thing though is that they started to spend their time in drawing and coloring and be more creative. Another game they have is write down all cartoon/comic characters they know and have come across. I'm at times helping them with names of shows I grew up watching. It is kind of fun that way for us.

[roy_libran]

And I have personally gone in just the reverse direction, and influenced my family to do the same with our 8 year old.
She has a cart-load of books, a piano, lots of games, access to TV/iPad, art material, and I bought her an Xbox in the nick of time by getting it delivered last Saturday. I have completely set her free to decide when she wants to wake up, what she wants to do, how she wants to spend her time; not trying to control any aspect at all.

This isn't a 'normal' time, and I wouldn't put a 'normal' protocol for her until the times change. We'll figure out how to wean her off this new-found independence once we go on to the next new 'normal'.

[Warwithwheels]

Amazon’s audio platform Audible is releasing hundreds of its titles for free while students around the world are stuck at home.

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen

[Thilak29]

While I encourage limited screen time, when they get to spend time watching screens consider this : https://learnathome.withyoutube.com/

[TejasKinger]

Curiosity Stream is a great service to sign up for. Think of it like Netflix, but for documentaries. Lots and lots of educational content on the platform. Plus, I think they're offering great discounts to enable people to stay in.

[ron178]

I'm not sure if I'm qualified to reply to this thread since I am a 'kid' myself(teenager, rather), but here are some things I have begun doing to keep myself occupied:

1. I've started learning to play the guitar. My sister and wikiHow help me with this.
2. I end up doing some household chores like vacuuming/laundry/loading the dishwasher because we have almost no household help now. I even fixed our washing machine's leaky drain hose.
3. During the evening, I ride my skateboard or my sister's kick-scooter on the terrace.
4. I'm continually practising programming in Java in general, as well as to keep in shape for my pending computer board exam(Std. 10) which has been postponed.
5. I'm planning to upload more videos to my YouTube channel.
6. During the rest of the time, I watch movies or TV shows on Amazon Prime, but that begins to get monotonous after a while.

Though I have four pending exams, I have taken a break from studying because it would be redundant at this point.

[sgm]

My kids are missing their play time outside the house but they are keeping themselves engaged and end up in siblings rivalry very often.
We have a few Cockatiels as pets and they love spending time with them. Though we have a pet dog, it is stuck in it's cage just like we are locked inside the house. The only physical activity is roller blades inside the house.
Both the kids love reading and do some activities like sketching and drawing, so we are able to control some amount of TV time.

[Suhail]

Extremely relevant and much needed thread at this time.
My wife and I are doing WFH with 2 kids (8yrs & 3yrs). Initially it was extremely difficult and the entire schedule went for a toss as the working hours stretched and kids didn't know how to exhaust the energy. We first had to put a hard stop to the working hours and save ourselves from the side effect of WFH. For kids, engaging them with educational games and working on activities like gardening, story reading and white board drawings have helped in keeping them a little away from being glued to the TV.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by roy_libran

And I have personally gone in just the reverse direction, and influenced my family to do the same with our 8 year old.
She has a cart-load of books, a piano, lots of games, access to TV/iPad, art material, and I bought her an Xbox in the nick of time by getting it delivered last Saturday. I have completely set her free to decide when she wants to wake up, what she wants to do, how she wants to spend her time; not trying to control any aspect at all.

This isn't a 'normal' time, and I wouldn't put a 'normal' protocol for her until the times change. We'll figure out how to wean her off this new-found independence once we go on to the next new 'normal'.

Interesting approach. We are also following something similar with my 9 year old. She is used to playing outdoors in the complex with friends for at least a couple of hours a day. That being stopped was her biggest issue. But now resigned to the fact that there is nothing to be done and old enough to understand why we are in the current situation.

She has TV access, occasional access to phone, books, kindle, bunch of art material. Also has some online learning stuff which we had signed up earlier. In addition there is some school work the school has pushed online. So mostly up to her to figure out how to pass her time with all these. Only monitoring to see that it does not become too much of one thing.

In between work or after the end of workday, of course we spend time together for some activities.

Considering it is 21 day or more lock down, trying to figure out a detailed schedule or a plan to keep them engaged throughout honestly is not going to work. - Especially for 8-9+ and older kids