How to keep your children busy while you work
Ways to Keep Your Kids Busy While Working From Home
To avoid some of the chaos that comes with working from home while the kids are around too, a little bit of planning ahead and organization goes a long way. Many parents find that having a general routine is helpful for everyone, but do what works best for your family. Know that disruptions to the routine will happen, and it’s ok to get off track sometimes. Keep toys and craft supplies as organized as possible, so they’re easy to find — and put back.
1. Toys and Imaginative Play
Having lots of age-appropriate toys around is one of the easiest ways to keep your kids busy at home. You likely already have plenty of toys, but when you’re working from home, it’s even more important to have them organized and easy to access. You may want to put away some toys in organized bins, and cycle or rotate the toys that are out at any one time. This helps keep messes from getting out of control, and it prevents boredom as the cycled-in toys seem new and fresh to the children. Encourage imaginative play, having the kids role play scenarios like store, restaurant or school, and have toys and objects available that spark the imagination for this type of play.
Construction sets like LEGO, wooden building blocks, Erector sets, K’nex and lots of others are great for free play activities and lengthier projects that will keep kids busy for longer periods of time. Give kids specific challenges like building a house, city or robot to keep them focused. Try other challenging and fun toys like jigsaw puzzles and board games, too.
2. Arts and Crafts Projects
Kids love to create, and art projects can keep them busy while you’re working from home. Have some basic art supplies on hand, like crayons, markers, play dough, construction paper and coloring books. For the youngest artists, also try finger paints, stamps and stickers. As kids develop motor skills and artistic abilities, add in cut-and-paste activities, collage, drawing and painting. Older children may enjoy books or online lessons that teach drawing or painting to practice their skills.
Try some of these fun art and craft activities for kids to do while you work from home:
Painted rocks: Kids of all ages enjoy hunting for rocks outside and decorating them! Attach googly eyes to make pet rocks or have older kids paint the rock according to the shape they think it most resembles — maybe a tree, flower or turtle. You can also heat the rocks and use crayons. The crayons will melt as they touch the rock and create a cool painted effect. Just be sure to wash the rocks before decorating them.
Decorate a cardboard fort: Use a large cardboard box, or attach a few smaller ones together. Have children use crayons, markers, paint and stickers to decorate the outside and inside. The box can be a house, secret fort, car, boat, rocket ship or whatever the kids imagine. Cut out doors and windows, and draw in any accessories to set the scene. When they are finished decorating, the kids can play all day in their new creation.
Get this 74 Creative Drawing Tutorial For Children
3. Engage them with dance videos
Kids seem to be able to operate tablets and phones from younger and younger ages. Set your child up with some music (that isn’t too loud to disturb your work), show them how to take a video (if they don’t already know how!), provide props or dress-up clothes and have them take dance videos (or other silly videos) that they can share with you (probably with much laughter) over lunch or dinner.
4. Set up an art project
This will most likely be a messy cleanup, but a fun art project can entertain children for hours. Cover anything valuable with newspaper or plastic, break out the paint sets and tell your kids to draw you the most colorful picture they can. Less destructive but equally messy alternatives include Play-Doh and Legos that can be built and destroyed over and over again. It's best if you can have one area in your home dedicated to art projects. This will help kids compartmentalize.
Coloring books are a happy medium unless your kids color a little too far outside the lines and end up decorating the walls and furniture. If this is the case, take the art project outside, where cleanups are much easier. Sidewalk chalk is a great alternative for bright, sunny days.
5. Engage them with Cleaning Toys
Kids above the age of five can be engaged in washing their toys. Parents can fill up a tub or a sink with some soap and water, keep the towels aside and ask the kids to wash their toys. This activity will not only keep them busy but also develop the habit of cleanliness in them. Children will love doing this activity as most of them love playing with water. However, it is important to be mindful that they do not wash any electronic toys which otherwise could be damaged.
6. Make an Obstacle Course:
Gotta keep the little ones moving! Create an obstacle course in your living room that has different checkpoints throughout the course. Try using painter's tape on the floor and then cushions to create obstacles. I tried this out yesterday and used a couple baskets as checkpoints for picking up pom poms and then dropping them into the second basket before getting to the end. You (and your coworkers on Zoom) are at the end of the course and can give you kid high fives before they do it all over again.
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