10 tips and a daily routine for surviving the house-bound days

It’s time like these that we see the true colors of humanity. I have been so impressed by the flood of community support for families, elderly and individuals who are alone without family. The feeling of solidarity in the air is without question the saving grace through all this. As Canadians we can take pride in the country’s response and concern for its citizens.

The whole world has responded with compassion and care. This reflects in social media, which has virtually (no pun intended) exploded with free contents for the world.

As a small business in Quebec providing services to children, we hope to contribute in a small way to this collective energy of sharing. Here is our part, we hope it’s helpful in the weeks of confinement to come.

We want to support families through the only means we have, activities for kids!

1. Play dress up! First go through your clothes and your kids clothes and clean out all the clothes that you wish to donate to charity. Make a big pile on the floor and set a 60 second timer, have your child dress you with a crazy assortment of clothes, have siblings dress each other! Take a picture to remember the fun! Not only did you enjoy an activity but you cleaned out the clothes you no longer need and have done something to initiate your child to the idea of community by giving the clothes away to families in need.
2. Learn a hand craft together – with the vast amount of simple instructional videos available on line – you can learn to knit in an afternoon. Of course you may need to get some yarn first but there are online stores you can shop to purchase the yarn in a variety of colors. You can also make a quick trip to the local thrift store and buy what you need. 
3. Start reading a book together – Check out your local library. At the moment they are doing their part to assist families and individuals at home by putting books online for free! Our favorite for the little ones would be of course the entire Dr. Seuss collection, Shel Silverstein: The Giving Tree, Eric Carle; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Robert Munich: Love You Forever. For older children we strongly suggest the fabulous Goosebump series.
4. Start story writing together. Children are wonderful storytellers. Pick 5-20 words and have your child weave a story together. The number of words will depend on the age of your child.
5. Play the just one bite game. Go to your cupboard and choice 5 items. Be sure to select a variety of tastes and textures, sweet, salty, sour, crunchy, soft and chewy. Place the food on plates and cover them so they are not seen by the children. Place a blindfold on the kids and pass out the treats. Can they identify the food with JUST ONE BITE? 
6. Yoga! Seriously take only 15 minutes and stretch – YouTube is filled with brilliant short yoga videos. My favorite is Cosmic kids.
7. Let your kids cook dinner, yes let them go into the cupboard and choose what they can manage.
8. Create a craft table. This honestly does not take much. Rolls of toilet paper, scraps of paper, buttons, tape, paper plates, plastic or paper cups, glue, glitter, rocks, twigs, leaves, acorns, pine cones, yarn,  thread…I could go on and on – but I think you get the gist!
9. Make a chore chart. Depending on the age of your child, their personal chore chart can take many forms. 
10. Here is perhaps the most popular activity – a cardboard box, yes the activities are endless. A pack of markers and a roll of string, some scraps of paper and voila an entire empire is born!

We will be posting Daily contents to Learn Languages, Free, on our Facebook page. We have also updated our Games section on our website to include even more videos and music for your enjoyment!

It is our sincere hope that we contribute to making these next few weeks easier for families by providing entertaining and educational material. We are proud to do our part alongside many great companies offering Free contents during these times of social distancing. Here is our favorite : Scholastics, they are a wonderful resource and leader in providing educational material.