As long as you have the internet, your children never have to be bored. Whether it's on the screen or in real life, these fun activities for children will entertain and educate simultaneously.
Lockdowns and precautions during the COVID pandemic led to a bunch of bored kids at home (and often driving parents up the wall, given they were working from home). But there are enough free educational resources on the web that make it fun for kids to learn.
Be it games, activities, or YouTube channels, check out these fun ways for parents to keep the kids occupied while learning something.
1. Research Parent (Web): Free Educational Resources and Printables
The trick to raising curious children is to mix education and entertainment. Research Parent gives you all the resources you'll need to do that with an exceptional collection of free printables and other activities.
Blogger Michelle has a doctorate in engineering and was a research scientist before voluntarily quitting to raise her four kids. Her systematic educational mind has turned Research Parent into one of the most well-categorized and thoroughly-researched portals for anyone looking for educational activities for kids.
Broadly, you can go through printables, activities, play ideas, and book lists. Each of these has further sub-categories on subjects like history, geography, science, math, language, etc. Michelle explains why she selected and featured any particular resource, almost giving you a guide of what to expect and how to implement it.
For example, the fascinating set of 12 free printable paleontology cards is a lovely, engaging way for children to learn about dinosaurs and natural history. The control cards inculcate the memory, while the split cards become a game to match the picture to the description.
2. Kidalist (Web): Crowdsourced Kids' Activity Ideas for Busy Parents
Kidalist was born during the lockdown to help busy parents share ideas to keep their kids occupied. It's a crowdsourced board of activities and other suggestions for children, where anyone can upvote the best recommendations.
You can browse the site in two ways. In Collections, you'll find category groups like animals, apps, live online events, and reading, with a clear indicator of how many items are in it before you click. The other way is to check out Resources, where you can filter by topics or tags like free printables, age 10+, Avengers, Harry Potter, Xbox, etc.
Registered users can bookmark items for later, and participate or add value by upvoting and commenting.
3. Dad I'm So Bored and Rainy Day Kids (Web): Indoor Activities for Children Stuck at Home
It could be the coronavirus or a blizzard, a child stuck at home is going to get restless quickly. Two websites give you a quick list of indoor activities for such kids.
Developer Jon Evans created Dad I'm So Bored for his children Oliver and Audrey. It's a simple list of edutainment activities, listed in categories like learn, read, explore, arts and crafts, programming, build a website, entertainment, and movement. Scroll to the bottom for a tiny line that says "Go Push a Button!" This button generates random cute activities suggested by Oliver and Audrey themselves, like drawing a dream house on a graph paper or tickling your sibling.
Rainy Day Kids also lists a series of activities separated into similar categories. But you can also filter these suggestions by age groups 1-3, 3-5, 5-8, 9-12, and 13+. And again, you can submit your own recommendations for other parents to discover.
4. Crash Course Kids (YouTube): Explaining Science to Kids in Short Videos
Curiosity in children takes the form of a thousand questions from "Why is the sky blue?" to "What is dirt?" Science has the answer to most of these, but it needs to be explained in a manner that kids can understand. That's the whole point of Crash Course Kids.
Host Sabrina takes children through the basics of life sciences, earth, space, physics, and engineering in short and entertaining videos. Each video is about five minutes and includes a mix of animations and Sabrina talking to the screen. She uses simple language that an average fifth-grader can understand.
While Crash Course Kids does not make any new videos now, its collection of 95 videos makes it one of the best YouTube channels for kids. Check out the playlists to dive into a subject and learn it step-by-step.
5. Red Ted Art (Web): Easy Craft and Paper Activities for Kids
Every parent should have an arts and crafts kit handy. It's one of the easiest ways to keep a child occupied for hours while building their creativity and hand skills. But if you're running out of ideas on what to make, Red Ted Art has over 2500 craft projects and paper-based activities for kids.
Largely, the craft activities are divided by age groups: preschoolers (under 5 years old) and those above five but not yet on YouTube. If your child is above eight years old, head to the Red Ted Art YouTube channel. Those videos are ideally for children to work by themselves on craft projects with simple supplies.
The instructions are in simple English that a child can understand, but meant to be read by the parents. Red Ted Art also hosts a pack of free printable items, to make it that much easier for children who struggle with crafts.
Find a Shared Activity With Your Kids
With the help of these websites, you can finally get a few minutes to work or finish tasks while your child is busy with something fun yet educational. You'll need to check in regularly nonetheless, depending on the kid's age. But it frees you up to do more, and distracts them from the boredom of being stuck at home.
Still, don't let this be the whole strategy. Many of these sites also have shared activities that you can do with your child. Or you could involve them in your hobbies too, like asking them to lend a hand in the garage or kitchen. It's just as important to carve out time for them, as it is to carve out time for yourself.
