What to do while you're at home during the Pandemic
With all kinds of large gatherings cancelled, no new sports games to watch on TV, schools closed and many people under self-quarantine during the global COVID-19 pandemic, what’s a person (or family) to do to stop the boredom? Here are 19 suggestions to help make your time at home interesting – and maybe even productive.
- Pull out the old board games and have a family tournament.
- Finally clean out those closets and drawers you’ve been meaning to get to.
- Create a handmade card or poem for the upcoming Mother’s Day and Father’s Day holidays.
- Start a journal to record your feelings about the pandemic for posterity.
- Give yourself permission to binge-watch those TV shows and movies.
- Put aside social media for a day and make calls to those friends and family members you haven’t spoken with in a while.
- Bake a cake or try out that complicated dinner recipe.
- Curl up with a great book.
- Download a meditation app and learn how to focus on your deep breathing.
- Treat yourself to an at-home spa day – manicure your nails, put a mask on your face, do that time-intensive, 10-step skin care routine that will make you feel better.
- Read all those magazines you have piled up on the coffee table.
- Watch a YouTube video and learn a new craft, like crochet or knitting.
- Stop the procrastination and fix that broken thingy in your house.
- Do all the laundry and enjoy the feeling of a job well-done.
- Sort through all your plastic storage containers to find matching tops and bottoms.
- Take a bubble bath, followed by a long nap.
- Go through your digital photos, select your favorite images and order some photo prints – or even a photo book – online.
- Help older parents and grandparents who are feeling isolated by reaching out to them via Facetime or Skype. You can even use the time to interview them and learn some interesting family history!
- Support United Way of Hernando County’s Disaster Relief Fund.
Activities for Young Children
- Movie Day
- Blanket fort
- Play Dress up
- Charades
- Play board games
- Dictionary scavenger hunt
- Color
- Bake
- Taste testing
- Straw painting
- Acrobats
- https://floridastudents.org/ - all grade level digital learning
- Have some “dirt” play with construction cars and rice in tupperware containers.
- Play-dough animal shapes.
- Freerice.com (educational learning website)
- Nitrotype.com (games and typing tests)
Activities for Teens
- Learn to play a new instrument
- Write a poem or story
- Try a YouTube drawing tutorial
- Swap a book suggestion
- Write and mail a letter to grandparents or other family members
- Get some friends virtually together to play games or apps
- Make something new
- Write a song
- Teach a family member to do something you love
- Make something creative (that you’ve never shown anyone)
- Find an exercise class online/YouTube
- Video Game Tournament
- Have a “Chopped” competition with family members
- Create a new music playlist
- YouTube yoga or meditation
- Journal your Coronavirus experience
- Rearrange your room
- Write a letter to your future self
- Find a book on the LIBBY app to listen to
- Write a bucket list
- Do a jigsaw puzzle or Logic puzzle
- Listen to a new podcast or Ted Talk
- Offer make Dinner for the family
- Invent a new game
- Find items to Donate
- Make a 30-day goal list
- Make a self-reflection journal