We want to give a shout-out to all the moms and dads out there who have suddenly become teachers, tutors and daycare professionals. Many of you are still tackling all of those responsibilities on top of your day jobs if you can work from home. It’s definitely the era of the super parent.
Right now, we can’t see all your smiling faces at Celebration Pointe, and we know that means there’s a lot of extra time being spent at home with family. That’s great! But it’s also easy to run out of fun activities to keep everyone busy—especially those high-energy little ones. So, we’ve gathered some activity suggestions from our friends over at Fun 4 Gator Kids that will help keep kids and kids-at-heart entertained.
Ask any parent. Investing in sidewalk chalk is a low-cost way to occupy children for hours at a time. While it’s always a good thing to foster creativity in your young ones, they can also join a global movement that started in Italy by drawing a rainbow on the sidewalk in your neighborhood.
You may have seen these sidewalk drawings or posters of rainbows hanging in windows in larger cities. The goal is to spread positivity, as well as to provide an outlet for connection while we’re all stuck at home. Encourage your kids to safely hunt for rainbows around the city, create their own and share on social media!
O2BKids is posting daily challenges on Facebook for younger age groups that will allow them to learn and collect badges while having fun doing cool activities. Recent challenges have involved hunting for certain letters of the alphabet around the house and learning how to make the color purple by mixing other colors together.
There’s nothing like a healthy interactive activity to keep your kids entertained and exhausted. One of the toughest things about staying home is finding the time and space to exercise. And we all know you can never get a child to exercise as long as you call it exercise. But what if we called it dance?
IndepenDANCE Studio offers performing arts online classes for all ages, including toddlers, from ballet and musical theater production to acrobatic arts and iBaby & Me. The best part about this suggestion from Fun 4 Gator Kids is that they have adult classes too!
Tune in every weekday at 10 AM for storytime on Education Station & Preschool’s Facebook page. And don’t worry if you can’t make it right at 10 AM. The videos aren’t live, so if your kids haven’t seen them yet, you can go watch all the recordings right now for an extended session or save them for a rainy day.
Ms. Mohini at Goloka Yoga for Kids is offering free online classes via Zoom to teach children the basics of breathing and practicing yoga. This is a great way to help your children grow stronger physically and mentally in a time when they can’t get outside and stretch their legs or interact with other kids. Plus, yoga is a relatively quiet pursuit, just saying. This might be the perfect activity for any little ones who are prone to interrupting conference calls.
Kids can’t have all the fun! If you’re lucky enough to find someone else to watch your kids for a few hours, try these activities that will get you out of the house but still allow you to maintain a healthy social distance.
No, seriously. With several hundred miles of trails throughout Gainesville and Ocala, there are plenty of beautiful places where you can connect with nature while safely social distancing. Can’t decide which trail to choose? Library District offers tons of free online resources about nature and any other topic you can imagine! We recommend checking out Gainesville & Ocala: Your Guide to the Area’s Most Beautiful Hikes.
The University of Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, better known as The Swamp, is open daily from 7 AM to 8 PM. No need to buy a ticket to a game! As long as you’re not congregating in groups, you can see what it’s like to be a Gator down on the field, looking up at nearly 90,000 seats stacked to the sky.
Whether you’re more of a Zoom person or a Google Hangouts person, you’ve at least seen photos from virtual happy hours by now. Why not add a theme, invest in appropriate apparel and have a full-on party? We’ve seen tropical themes, poker nights, iconic movie themes, you name it. It’s a great way to get together with friends without feeling like the event is just another conference call.
Fun 4 Gator Kids is your local resource for family-friendly events and activities in Gainesville and surrounding areas. They also have an entire page dedicated to at-home activities to help all you patient parents make it through these strange times. Once again, we can’t wait to see you and your families back on the promenade at Celebration Pointe as soon as it’s safe for all of us!
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