Educational Activities to do while your kids are home for Covid-19

Schools are being closed and kids are being kept home to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Some schools have created virtual learning plans, and some have not. If you are on the search for easy ways to grow your child’s academics while having them home, I have some ideas below! Many can be modified to a variety of age levels!

First, I wanted to share a cute social story for those who need the virus explained in a simple way:

Theme

If your kids were talking about a topic at school and they want to continue exploring it or they expressed interest in another topic, you can easily make that the focus of all the different areas below! As an early childhood teacher, I often found if I picked a theme/topic and made all the areas of learning based on that it made planning and learning more fun for everyone. It is not necessary, but it definitely could help!

Read

Children should read or be read to daily. Reading will help expand their knowledge in the theme you picked or just help improve their reading, comprehension, listening, vocabulary, and more.

As an Usborne Books & More consultant, I have many many books to recommend on any topic. I have my page linked if you would like to browse or you can comment, email, message and I can make a personal list for you! Usborne Books & More has complied a page of educational activities and books to help parents at home right now! I can definitely tailor it more, but hope this helps! If you shop, choose Covid-19 party 🙂

Usborne Books & More has has also created a document of other links and educational activities outside of their books that may be great tools!

Students most likely brought home books from school, those are a great tool to continue reading!

Kindergarten Smorgasboard-Mr Greg! Oh Mr. Greg! He is an AMAZING kindergarten teacher offering his amazing books and other tools for free. Seriously, he is a teaching inspiration his stuff is awesome.

Raz-Kids a digital resource that provides a library of differentiated books students can use to practice reading wherever they are (internet required) Register for Free. These have reading levels like guided reading at school.

Library books are free. I do wish you to use caution, remember social distancing, wash hands before and after, and don’t go if you are sick. But I do hope you can have a pile of books for your child at home to read. Some libraries in our area are closing so please check on their openings as well prior to going.

Inspirations Dance and Fitness, the studio I go to and teach at, is offering a nightly story time LIVE on Facebook. At 6:30pm CST you and your child can cuddle up and read with Ms. Tricia!

Teacher Activities

TeachersPayTeachers (TPT) has a ton of printable resources ranging from free to a price. I encourage you to search by age and then the theme you decided on. I can tell you there are for sure a ton of different ideas and can help you from recreating the wheel. I have linked my page that has some 4k activities, but simply search to find any age level or other theme!

Kindergarten ToolKit offers everything from flash cards to lesson plans. I have loved their page! Their flashcards are the ones we have.

Bitty Beginnings is an amazing preschool curriculum that has just about everything you could need to work with the little ones. They are printables. I laminate everything to make them last longer as well as allow them to be used with dry erase markers.

Arts and Crafts

Pinterest if full of project ideas. I am linking my pinterest page, but simply search for your idea and you will find many great activities!

I highly recommend looking into Creative Crafting Club. I wrote a post on this early this month. They include lesson plans, are made with many recycled supplies and do more than just art! They are only open for enrollment for 1 week, March 23-31, so I encourage you to sign up for the waiting list to get all the communication to get in right away!

For younger kids, you can make an alphabet book with things around the house or their handprints! The template I used when teaching is available HERE. The how to of all the handprints and footprints is available HERE.

Sensory Bins

Though common in an early childhood classroom, these can be a part of a science lesson for bigger kids and bring in academics.

Make slime, use a sensory bin to hold baking soda and vinegar tests, etc. I have PINNED some science experiments here, feel free to search more!

In sensory bins with small objects, you can bury two part activies to meet your kids level and take learning up a notch. Working on letters? Match capital to lower case on cards hidden. Multiplications? Match problems to answers. Working on state capitals? Match. These can be made with any pieces of paper cut up and stashed in a bin. Bins can be any container you have laying around. I have PINNED some sensory table ideas, feel free to search for more!

Chalkboards

We have loved using ChalkfullofDesign boards to help with our learning. They are currently having a sale to help you get some great learning tools. They have boards that can be helpful to many age levels and can be cute to display always.

For a short time, Use the code SCHOOLISCLOSED for 15% off site-wide. 

flash cards

matching

This is for a big younger of a crowd, but matching is a key skill. This can be done with parent instruction, independently, or from a sensory bin. Young children typically start with their name, move to letters and numbers, and then move on to sight words. Use objects you have around the house or make your own from index cards. I use puzzles and flash cards as my typical tools.

Search the house

This game gets kids up and moving and can be done with literally any subject area. Parents put the answers all over the house and then call out the question or what they are searching for. EX: Find the B! Find the capital of Wisconsin! 4×4! Kids then have to run through the house to find the answer and point it out. These can be made from flash cards pre-made or just make your own with index cards!

Journal

It is quite astonishing how early children can begin to journal. As soon as they can start drawing, they are beginning to journal. The general pattern of learning to write is: picture and telling about it, picture and scribbles for writing, picture and beginning to label (initial sound and/or invented spelling), picture and simple sentences, beginning to write and adding detail. You can have your child write to a prompt, write a week summery or something similar no matter the age. That gets them thinking, writing, and working through the process.

You can purchase a journal (composition notebook), find any notebook, or use the back of scrap paper. It doesn’t really matter, what matters is that they are working to write.

Write a letter. Make a card

I just saw posted on social media and I LOVE IT. Have your child write a letter/make a card for those in the nursing homes. They are lonely as they are not allowed to have visitors right now and it would be fine motor skills, writing, coloring, direction following and more for you!

Online Activities

Virtual Field Trips- I do not know who compiled this list, but it is a google doc with clickable links for virtual field trips you can go on!

Scholastic announced they have a page for varying age levels to keep kids learning while they are home.

Raz-Kids a digital resource that provides a library of differentiated books students can use to practice reading wherever they are (internet required) Register for Free

Headsprout is an online k-5 reading program that adapts to the needs of the individual student. It is self paced, which makes it ideal for at-home practice.

Teach Your Monster to Read is an Usborne app that was just approved by the British school board of education. It is a great literacy tool. It is free online and has a one time fee app available, too.

Starfall It is geared towards pre-k through 2nd grade. It is free to use but you can pay to expand the learning. It covers math, language arts, music, and seasonal activities.

MeeMu is an app we were just gifted. Stella is really enjoying it and Nolan has also done the puzzles page. It is a preschool-early learning app. There are free sections with a paid upgrade.

ABC Mouse is a paid program but supported by may teachers and home schoolers as a great tool. For the duration of the mass school closures, they are highly discounting (I think 50%) their rates!

Writing Wizard– an amazing printing letters tool. I am in love with this app. It’s ability to customize words you want to write, early printing skills (lines, curves, circles, etc), and letter formation. There is a one time cost to this one.