Coronavirus made us do a complete 180-degree turn in our lives. Instead of working and socializing we all have to stay home.
My biggest challenge as a mom is how to entertain my daughter Chaeli without too much screen time. As a working mom who travels a lot for work, I don’t get to spend as much time with her as I’d like to. All of her toys are at my parents’ house in the province. The summer break was originally planned to be our time for a family vacation and bonding with the kids of our Metro Manila neighbors. Playdates are essential to condo living with kids.
But the quarantine announcement took all of that away. Our vacation plans, set to begin the day after the presidential announcement of quarantine, were the first to go. But at least we still had our building neighbors and playdates, right?
Then the first case was reported in a nearby condo tower, prompting all towers to close the pool and playground. We transferred our playdate to the garden area below our condo, or the “backyard” as we call it. Days later we realized how quickly the virus was escalating. We made the responsible decision as parents to bring all playdates to a halt. And thus, our enhanced community quarantine began.
So now, as my daughter is trapped in our home with no playmates and no toys, we have to rely on Nintendo and Netflix. I jokingly call these her N&N's but really I don’t want her getting hooked on those N&N's. I have to find ways to entertain her without gadgets and make this time we have together more productive.
Here is a list of things I did with my nine-year-old to make this quarantine season fun and productive:
1. Enroll in an Online course.
Coronavirus made us do a complete 180-degree turn in our lives. Instead of working and socializing, we all have to stay home. line classes requires one-year payment in advance which is unreasonable for me at the moment because of a.) I'm still testing this with my kid, I don't even know if shell like it or will she still be using it after 2 months. b.) we are in a Corona crisis right now I need to prioritize my spendings and save money just in case the worst is yet to come.
I found this site www.khanacademy.org, it is a free online course for kids of various age or grade level. It may be free but they do accept donations which I highly encourage you guys and I myself did too after I saw how well it is working for my kid.
The best thing about this course is that it gives you a lesson plan depending on what level your kid is on, which makes it much easier for us parents to be organized on what to teach to our kid. It also has a feature where it assesses your child's learning level when they take a unit test that gives them recommended lessons afterward.
2. Do some cool 3D papercrafts.
My kid has a strong artistic side. So I wanted to develop it more.
here are the arts we did during our quarantine season.
I got the Pokemon 3d layouts from redtart. Maggy, made these awesome printable layouts of Pokemon. It's a simple print, color, cut and assemble a project that I and Chaeli bonded over.
Then, she also saw on the net on a DIY paper dollhouse, we also worked o. Will show the paper dollhouse pics soon when were done.
3. Introduce cooking. And they'll appreciate their meals more
I take this "house arrest" lockdown with my kid as an opportunity to teach her new skills. Instead of spending the rest of the day letting her watch tv while I do chores, I include her in my daily tasks, and that includes cooking. I let her help me cook her meal and I saw how it allows her to appreciate the food she eats more. And best of all, it also helps her develop her skills in the kitchen.
You can start by making a simple pizza, just let her slice and prep the ingredients, then place it on the ready-made pizza crust, put in in the oven then voila.
4. Yoga with your little one.
The lockdown has been so exhausting for me. It was draining me physically and mentally. I started to become alarmed when I started fighting over my Bluetooth EarPods simply because it won't sync to my television and the worst part of that, my little girl witnessed my little tantrum.
So I started to add yoga to my morning routine.
Of course, I dragged my little one on it. At first, she didn't want to, so I forced her to just give it a chance. after her first try, she loved it.
Now she yoga with me almost every morning.
That's the top 4 activities I do with my little girl that keeps us busy and sane during this stressful moment./
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