School Closures? 40 Life Schooling Activities!

With school closures, canceled activities, and social distancing, let's choose to focus on the positive: the silver lining is that this is actually a great opportunity to spend quality time with our kids. Throw away the worksheets and busywork; instead embrace Life Schooling and have fun learning together! Here are 40 ideas for exploration alongside your kids.

1. Read-aloud in the morning and at bedtime (here are 10 Tips for Read Aloud Success)

2. Go for a daily walk or scooter rides (sunshine = Vitamin D for boosting the immune system)

3. Play board games and card games for the fun of it (and let the math happen naturally; here's a great list of math games)

4. Have Circle Time, to explore poetry, music, and movement together

5. Study nature together (here are simple ideas for nature study)

6. Plant a garden together (here are easy plants for beginning gardeners and tips for planting a garden)

7. Go for a hike (this website is great for finding local hikes)

8. Do a science lesson (Mystery Science has a bunch of free home science lessons)

9. Bake and cook together (real life math and chemistry!)

10. Learn to whittle (my son's favorite pocketknife also has a little saw, and he loves it!)

11. Take a world trip without leaving home, complete with geography, foods, music, and books

12. Collect insects or start insect habitats

13. Enjoy springtime together (here are ideas for Springtime exploration)

14. Raise caterpillars to watch them turn into butterflies

15. Put on plays together (here are classroom script versions of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest)

16. Visit different parks around your town

17. Paint together (we love these vibrant watercolors)

18. Start rock collections and learn about your finds

19. Get chicks and start chicken keeping (great for learning animal husbandry, responsibility, and producing your own eggs; this book and this book are great for getting started)

20. Draw together (Draw Tip Tuesday is a fantastic resource for little drawing lessons)

21. Tackle a project together (home repairs, auto maintenance, or yard care)

22. Make different types of slime

23. Learn how to burn wood with a magnifying glass

24. Grow salt crystals and study their cubic shapes

25. Read aloud a math picture book

26. Play with kinetic sand and build all sorts of things

27. Make homemade kites and fly them on a windy day

28. Make baking soda/vinegar volcanoes (rather than using flour to create a volcano, we prefer to do it outside using mud!)

29. Make a collection of natural objects from different habitats

30. Climb a tree together

31. Enjoy history coloring books

32. Paint rocks (this book has so many cool ideas for painted rocks)

33. Plant a fruit tree (We've had great success with Stark bare-root fruit trees)

34. Listen to an audiobook (here's a great list of FREE audiobooks)

35. Watch a bird nest together (NestWatch.org is a cool resource to learn the best ways to watch a nest)

36. Learn to sew or embroider

37. Make a paper solar system

38. Plant flowers (sunflowers or marigolds grow great if it's getting warm where you are, pansies or snapdragons are better if it's still wintery)

39. Make a paper village

40. Make a marble race course (physics!)

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