These are challenging times for parents. What do you do with the kids? How do you keep them entertained? The Toy Insider Parents have been providing content for parents since 2012. Whether it’s crafts to fight boredom, games for game night, or tips on promoting thankfulness, below are some of our past posts that may be especially helpful as you search for inspiration during the next few weeks.
Educational Ideas
If you are looking for educational ideas, our current Toy Insider Parent Debbie Zelasny has you covered. Want to head outside? Here are some educational uses for outdoor toys.
Do you have some apples in the house? How about using them for some math games? While this post highlights travel-friendly educational games — we all know we aren’t traveling right now — they are still great educational games to have around the house!
Whenever the kids do go back to school, check out these tips from Deb on how to transition them back to the classroom. In the interim, keep up their school savvy with these study habit tips.
Game Ideas
Darcy Zalewski is a gaming guru. She wrote this post on games to play with relatives during the holidays. While you may not be hosting family right now, these games fit the bill and get everyone bonding together inside the house! Cooperative games are great, too — and they help kids learn to get along together. Don’t have a whole team? Don’t fret: These games are great just for two people.
Crafts & More
Former Toy Insider Parent Destiny Paquette previously shared some ideas for mindful activities and crafts. While the posts may be related to Thanksgiving or end-of-the-year teacher notes, they are useful now, too. It’s a great time for kids to thank a teacher or for you to send a letter to someone you’ve been too busy to reach out to recently. These thankfulness tips also help us think about what we can be grateful for in times like these.
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Ideas
Are you looking for some DIY activities? How about taking up knitting or sewing? Paquette shows you how in this post. Stephanie Glover shares how to make gak slime in this post, and Dusty Pendleton offers up an idea on how to use this free time to give some old furniture new life! (In a less fun twist, you could always do those chores around the house that you’ve been putting off, or think about cleaning up the playroom with these tips.)
All in all, we may be at home on these sudden staycations, but it doesn’t mean we can’t have fun, bond as a family, get some things done, and be thankful while doing it!
