We are all bored now of being stuck at home on an endless “vacation” that doesn’t seem to have an end in sight quite yet. But with the littles being home from school, sometimes that boredom can go to chaos quickly. So what do you do? What are some easy activities that you can plan for your family that is fun, but also don’t break the bank too much? We have just the list that will give your kiddos some much-needed fun while stuck in quarantine.
Online Board Games
Remember that closet of games your parents had when you were a kid? I bet right now you wish you had one of those again. Jackbox Games is excellent if you and your kids have tablets or computers hanging around the house. You can buy the game party pack for just under $20 and make a family game night out of it.
Hiking Scavenger Hunt
Hiking is a great way to get the family outside and getting some exercise while also making sure that you are keeping a reasonable distance between you and others. A great way to make this fun and exciting for the kids is to create a scavenger hunt of things to look for and potentially collect along the way. Things like stones, especially stuff like obsidian and quarts, are usually pretty easy to find and can be used for another activity that we will be mentioned on this list.
Rock Tumbling
An excellent activity for you and your littles is rock tumbling, as mentioned above, take those rocks and stones that you found on your hike and turn them into memorable keepsakes by tossing them in a rock tumbler. But what is a rock tumbler, you ask? A rock tumbler can take what looks like a dull old rock and turn it to a beautiful shiny and sparkly treasure. The rock tumbler uses four different kinds of grit (usually varying sizes of sand grain), and water to help polish and shine rocks to be later used for decoration, jewelry making, or even just keepsakes. This is an excellent activity for kids of any age and is also educational!
Owl Pellets
It sounds gross, but if you are not squeamish, this is an awesome project for kids and allows them another educational experience. Pellet.com sells quality sized barn owl pellets that are heat sanitized and individually wrapped in tin foil. A cheap and fun project each pellet depending on size ranges from $1.05 to $2.15, or they have kits available for $17.95. The pellets can be used to illustrate the nature of the food chain and how avian predators help our ecosystem. You can make this even more fun by printing out instruction guides and skeleton guides that are provided on the website and let your child match up each bone on the sheet.