How to keep kids busy, connected during COVID-19

Working from home during COVID-19 is probably a whole new world for some of you. Getting the job done amid daily distractions from the TV, fridge and family is probably hard. Add a curious toddler to the mix or an energetic 4-year-old and it’s not happening.

The Good Morning Show talked with Mary Grace Thomas via Skype about ways to keep your kids busy, entertained and connected while at home. Thomas teaches 3- and 4-year-old students at the Weekday Preschool at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro.

Since you can’t do everything together while you’re working from home, you should also plan on dedicating time for your child to play. Thomas said when a child is playing, imagining, creating, building or inventing, they are doing some serious learning. You should do this several times a day in 15- to 30-minute blocks.

“Allowing your children to have time for their own imaginations, their own learning, their own play, but then also having that time when you are with them and helping them along with learning is priceless,” Thomas said.

Dedicate time to read. You want to add 15 to 20-minute reading blocks where your child can do some independent reading while you take a conference call or log into a Zoom meeting. Coloring books are a great tool too.

Sensory tables are really fun. Giving your kids buckets of water with measuring cups over the sink is a great learning tool,” Thomas said.

While you can keep the kids busy inside, Thomas said hanging out in the yard opens the door to all-new adventures.

“I find with my Guilford County School kids, my older kids sitting at a computer staring at it, of course they’re doing really good work, they’re learning really good things but by the second hour, or three-hour mark of them staring at the computer, they’re zombies. They have no energy and their imagination is gone, but the moment that they step outside with the water play, chalk, trampoline, swings and the natural light, they come alive again,” Thomas said.

Freeze Tag

Scavenger Hunt

Tug of War

Balloon Stomp

Relay Races

When it comes to sidewalk chalk, Thomas said to let your imagination run wild.

“A great thing for preschoolers is letter recognition. Going out there with the sidewalk chalk and writing out the letter. You can take anything from rocks and sticks and trace those letters, or if you’re feeling a little bit crazy you can get into the water play and use a paintbrush and paint the letters,” Thomas said.

You can even draw an imaginary city on the sidewalk and get out your toy cars to drive around the city.

“Obstacle courses are fun because you can tell the kids run here, skip here, jump here. It teaches them to listen to instruction and follow directions,” Thomas said.

If you have extra toilet paper at home, tape some up in your hallways and let the kids try to get through it without ripping it. This game takes a while to set up but it also takes about an hour for kids to work through, giving you more time to spend concentrating on work.

Courtesy: www.wfmynews2.com

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Buy and read digital replicas of your TRIBUNE titles by subscribing through E-VENDING

Chief Richard Akinjide, Second Republic Attorney General, Is Dead
Chief Richard Akinjide, Second Republic Attorney General and Minister of Justice is dead. He died on Tuesday morning at the University College Hospital of old age-related ailment. He was aged 88. According to a source close to the family, the remains of the legal luminary has been deposited at a morgue… Read full story

FG Extends Closure Of Airports By Two Weeks
Nigeria’s government has extended the closure of airports in the country by two weeks due to what it called the continuous spread of the… Read full story

Six Nature Facts Related To Coronaviruses
DID you know that around 60 per cent of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, as are 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases, in other words they come to us via animals? Zoonoses that emerged or re-emerged recently are Ebola, bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), the Nipah virus… Read full story

COVID-19 Responses Must Be Built On Human Solidarity — ILO Tells World Bank, IMF
The Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Guy Ryder, has called for an immediate human-centred response through global solidarity to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his submissions to the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), the ILO Director-General… Read full story