Different Ways to Keep the Kids Occupied Without Screen Time

With everyone social-distancing or self-isolating at the moment, it can be difficult to not give in to the temptation to let your children spend more time on technology, especially if you have to work from home. Although at the time this is fine, you might want to spend a few days a week cutting down the time spent on screens. It can sometimes be difficult to know what to do they keep the kids engaged and entertained, even more so now. 

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Let’s have a look at some of the different ways you can keep the kids occupied without too much screen-time: 

Have A Fun Box

Try filling a box with different activities that your children can do alone, include things like coloring books,  board games, puzzles, and playing cards. When you need to get on with things like keeping the house clean or work, give them the box instead of their tablet and see how it goes. You might find that they resist at first but the more you do it the more they will accept it as part of their new routine. 

Create Some Family Quizzes

Sit down and make some quizzes for your children, and ask them to do the same. You could cover a range of topics such as maths, English, general knowledge, and fun topics like kids Disney trivia or other favorite cartoons. Then sit down and have a quiz afternoon or early evening, you could even include prizes for the most correct answers. You may want to adapt the level of the question for the different age groups but you can even get young children involved with quiz cards such as ‘tell me what this picture is’ or ‘complete this action. 

Get Them To Help You

When you’re cooking or cleaning, let them help you. Give them some small jobs, that you know that they can handle. For small children, it might just be tidying away their own toys or setting the table and for older kids you could include chopping vegetables, taking out the recycling, and running the hoover around. 

Build A Treasure Hunt 

Think about creating a treasure hunt, hide some stickers, pictures, or coins around the house and create a map for them to follow. Give them clues and let them run around finding all of the hiding places. The more you do them, the more you can find trickier hiding places and build up their resilience, it will also help them to build skills and knowledge they can be independent. 

Encourage Outdoor Play

Even though we are all following the guidelines with social distancing and self-isolation at the moment, it doesn’t prevent your kids from having some outdoor time in the garden. In fact, now that the weather is improving it’s the best time to get them in the garden. Give some children-friendly activities such as a water table, sandpit, planting flowers, playing with a ball, etc. It will give them fresh air, keep them occupied and still give them some independence. 

These are only a few of the different ways you can keep the kids occupied with screen-time, do you have any other ways that you could share in the comments below?