Lockdown Activity Ideas
Lockdown activity ideas
There is no easy way to get through lockdown, but anything that feels like a small win is worth sharing right?! To help manage the juggle of working while keeping the kids entertained at home, we have been picking a ‘theme’ for the day and planning our activities around that and it is really working.
Initially, I asked my kids to come up with all the theme day ideas, write them down on paper, fold them up and put them in a box. This activity itself took an hour by the time they had drawn pictures on the paper for each theme! I’m not going to lie, there we some odd ideas that came out… ‘yes day’, where they wanted me to say yes to everything being one of them…nope, that one didn’t get through, but lots did!
Space day, nature day, colour day, games and puzzles day, art day, dinosaur day, aquatic day, animal day, science… these were a few of the better ideas to come out!
In the morning, they pick out the theme and then it is over to them to come up with ideas of what they will do in the following areas:
Write/draw
Make/build
Exercise/activity
Watch/read
This has been great as I have been able to pass some responsibility to the kids of coming up with ideas of things to do! Plus, even just doing this takes time and gets them thinking!
Here are a few things we tried which you might like to give a go.
ANIMAL DAY
Write/draw
Draw a picture and write a story about your favourite animal
Make/build
Make animal masks or animal puppets with old socks
Build a hut for all your animal toys
Exercise/activity
Andy’s wild workouts on you tube are fun!
Call out the name of an animal and try and move around the room like them
Watch/read
Check out Auckland Zoo live web cams
David Attenborough is always a hit!
NATURE DAY
Write/draw
Draw a picture and/or write a story about your favourite adventure in nature
Make/build
Build a bug hotel
Collect leaves and sticks and draw round them and colour them in! See if you can name what trees they are from too
Use glue and make a picture from things you have found outside!
Make an ‘ice garden’ - pick some little flowers, leaves etc and put in empty yoghurt pots or plastic cups. Colour some water with food colouring of any colour then pour over your garden pickings, freeze overnight, tip out and admire your beautiful ice garden!
Grow some seeds! I asked my boys to explore the kitchen and find anything they thought was a seed or might grow a shoot! Then plant them with a little soil in an eggbox, water them daily and see which ones grow.
Exercise/activity
Do a nature hunt outside! Write a list of things to find then go hunting…
Do some maths activities in the garden
Watch/read
Check out these National Geographic videos
Find all your books that talk about nature!
Visit this website for more nature-related activities! This one here is good too.
SPACE DAY
Write/draw
Draw a picture of a planet and write about an adventure into space!
Make/build
Why not try my space frozen yoghurt art idea
Exercise/activity
Try this fun space workout
Watch/read
Look up some videos about planets and see what you find out!
Read any books you have about space
COLOUR DAY
Write/draw
Colour in one of these drawings
Write a list of 20 things that are your favourite colour!
Make/build
Collect everything you can find that is your favourite colour
Make some colourful healthy snacks!
Exercise/activity
Dress up in your favourite colours, turn on some music and have a dance!
Watch/read
Check out Michelle Dickson ideas here or on you tube for some colourful experiments
Find your most colourful books and read them!
PUZZLES AND GAMES DAY
Write/draw
Write a list of your favourite games or make up your own game and write about it!
Make/build
Make your own puzzle by drawing lines of paper, colouring in the shapes, cutting them out and seeing if you can put them back together
Make a playdough maze on your table and with a straw and a pingpong ball see if you can blow your ball through the maze and out the other side
Exercise/activity
Get the puzzles out and see how many you can make in the day
Get the board games out
Have a game of Twister. If you don’t own the game its pretty easy to make with a plain old sheet and painted circles or even drawing out circles on your driveway with chalk! Here is a very simple one for younger kids!
Watch/read
Have a go at some of these Disney themed online card games including memory games, dot to dot, pairs and more!
DINOSAUR DAY
Write/draw
Draw pictures of dinasours and practice writing their names!
Make/build
Make some biscuits in the shape of dinosaurs
Build a park for your toy dinosaurs from old cardboard boxes!
Exercise/activity
Check out some online dinosaur workouts!
Watch/read
Watch a dinosaur inspired TV show or movie! Dinosaur Train is a good one for younger kids.
RECYCLING DAY
Write/draw
Write down a list of all the things you can find in the kitchen that you can recycle when they are finished
Write down a list of things people can do that are good for the planet.
Make/build
Make a sculpture out of things from your recycling
Make a worm farm
Try this recycling word search
Exercise/activity
Go for a walk in your local area and see how many recycling bins you can count!
Watch/read
Check out these videos on recycling here and also here
PARTY DAY
Write/draw
Write party invitations for your family/friends and send them to them as messages or emails – set up a family zoom party!
Make/build
Make some healthy party food!
Exercise/activity
Check out these fun jump jam exercises, great to use at a party
Watch/read
Find a TV show or movies which are all about having a party or celebrating something!
What ideas have you tried?
