The pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of people. While many white-collar workers have had to pivot careers by either putting them on hold or moving to work-from-home situations, this is not the case for essential workers. These unsung heroes—health care personnel, grocery store workers, and first responders—must show up for work under all circumstances to provide services we rely on. But how do essential workers take care of their children with school closures, disrupted daycare services, and their own schedules being transformed by the pandemic? Keeping children safe at home—and happily busy—after a potential Covid-19 exposure has been an important part of essential workers’ family lives. In this article, we’ll look at activities that are fun and safe for children of essential workers to participate in.

 

Indoor Games

 

What You Need: A Pair of Dice

With a pair of dice, you can play a simple math skills game. Knockout is one such easy-to-learn and play game that children of all ages enjoy. Separate children into groups and give each group a pair of dice. Knockout numbers are 6, 7, 8, or 9 and each group must choose one of them. Then each child rolls the dice. When a player rolls the knockout number from that group, that player is out of the game. The game continues until there is just one player left.

 

What You Need: Paper and Pencils

A texture walk is a fun activity that gives children an opportunity to explore their surroundings as they get in some exercise without getting in the way of you working. The idea is to seek out different things with textures that range from smooth to rough. To capture the textures, a piece of paper is placed on top of the item and a rubbing is taken by running the pencil lead across it at an angle. Many different textures can be collected on the same sheet of paper.

 

What You Need: A Deck of Cards

Here is a creative exercise game for any time of year that you can use with a deck of cards. Each suit represents a specific exercise such as clubs are sit-ups, hearts are jumping jacks, etc. The numbered cards are the number of reps of each exercise the child must perform with face cards equaling the following: Jacks are 11 reps, Queens are 12, Kings are 13 and Aces are 14. A child pulls a card at random and then does the exercise and reps the card indicates.

  

Outdoor Games

 

What You Need: A Small Ball

Ball games are fun and so easy to create and play. Kids can stand just feet apart from each other and pass the ball back and forth in creative ways that incorporate physical activity. They can bounce it between them, then switch that to gentle underhand tosses or roll it back and forth with their feet. They can get as creative as their imagination will allow. The best thing about this type of game is that it doesn’t require a lot of space or preparation to play anytime they want.

 

What You Need: A Safe Outdoor Space

Hide and seek is a classic game for children to play. If you have access to a safe outdoor area, clearly define a zone where they can play the game and if you have young children and you’re playing with them, be sure to hide somewhere easy for your child to find you in the case being out of your child’s sight may be a scary experience. As they gain confidence, choose more difficult hiding places. Eventually, let your child hide but review what would be considered unsafe hiding spaces to prevent any kind of incident from happening.

 

What You Need: Chalk

One of the easiest safe activities for children involves their imagination. Nothing encourages this more than a clean piece of sidewalk or driveway and a piece of chalk. Let your child draw, write, or do whatever with chalk, preferably multi-colored! The best part of this is that if they want to start over, all you need is some water to wash it away. Or you can wait for a rainy day to clean the canvas so your child can do something different once the concrete dries after the storm.

 

What You Need: A Few Random Items

It is easy to build an obstacle course with inexpensive household items and use features of your home or yard. The obstacles can be things to go around, climb over, crawl under or through, and run to. The fun part of this activity, according to Chicago daycare providers, is that it teaches children how to follow directions and they get in a physical workout doing something fun. Switch up the obstacles in the course, making it a slightly different path to follow each time.

 

What You Need: Some Space to Run

Races are always fun. Depending on the amount of room you have you can design a simple course where running laps will be the activity. Or you can introduce relay racing with you as one of the racers. Running races with your child is a great way to burn off excess energy and introduce physical activity into a fun experience.

 

What You Need: A Balloon (or three)

Have you ever tried to burst a balloon just by sitting on it? It is not as easy as it sounds. Blow up a large balloon and let your child try to pop it by sitting on it on a chair or a couch or outside on grass. Let your child try several times. If it doesn’t break, then you try it. Take turns until one of you is successful and then try it all over again with another balloon. Sometimes it will be easy and other times it will be quite challenging. It will always be entertaining.

 

Final Thoughts 

Essential workers are busy people. Those with children have added responsibilities. However, with a bit of preparation and a few supplies, keeping children active and engaged with safe and fun activities is not as difficult as it may seem. Let your imagination guide you and provide you with the ideas you need to fill your child’s time with activities that are educational and fun. 

Sandra Chiu works as Director at LadyBug & Friends Daycare and Preschool.