Children need time outdoors to explore and learn. Current recommendations are for children to spend up to three hours outside a day. Now, we are not under normal circumstances and I don’t know how most of us can hit this goal following stay-at-home guidelines unless you have a yard and can watch your kids play outside for hours a day. But after hours on end inside our homes trying to come up with games or find new shows to binge, it is enormously helpful to get outside and breathe fresh air.
Please follow your state and local Executive Orders and recommendations and above all stay home as much as possible and practice social distancing. Luckily almost all state stay-at-home orders allow people to go outside for exercise. We have been taking advantage of that by going for tons of walks but when you need something else to do, here are some other ideas to mix it up. These are all activities that don’t require a big yard or lots of money. These ideas are helpful to me since I don’t have a yard but want my son to be able to have fun outside our townhome as much as possible.
- Blow bubbles
- Throw or kick a ball
- Play frisbee
- Draw with sidewalk shalk. Make a new hopscotch or draw encouraging drawings or wrote uplifting messages
- Eat your lunch or afternoon snack outside
- Play in a sandbox. If you don’t have one, you can buy small ones for around $30 which may very well be worth the investment.
- Go on a scavenger hunt around your block
- Dig in the mud or dirt
- Play in water – sprinklers or a water table or even just put water in a large bin and take it outside
- Make a time capsule and bury it
- Paint outside – makes for easy cleanup and is a change of scene
- Find a public trail (if still open) and explore – we have been doing this tons since local paved trails are open for individuals and families
- Go on a bike or scooter ride
- Bury toys in your yard and have your kids dig them up
- Hide items around your house for your kids to find – like a mini egg hunt with toys or candy
- “ Paint” the sidewalk with water
- Pick flowers or collect leaves
- Play I spy
- Build a makeshift fort
- Collect rocks
- Paint rocks
- Fly a kite
- Drive to an open National park or nature center. Some are still open, please check online and follow all rules and practice social distancing! We drove to Shenandoah National Park and it was a great little escape.
- Play in a friend’s yard: our friend’s let us borrow their yard for the afternoon – they sanitize their slide and trampoline and stayed inside while we played! It was the best idea and was like we had our own private playground.
