Across the globe, due to the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid 19), both adult and children are affected by quarantines, physical distancing and nationwide lockdown. Followed the government order, most of the company have to implement work from home to prevent the spread of this deathly virus among the community.

While one could claim that this new way of working from home is temporary and that’s why it’s hard, but for us parents, working from home with kids is nearly impossible.

Here the situation, based on my experiences.

Are your kids raiding all over the house at all times of the day? Keep open and close that refrigerator for about hundreds of times trying to find something to munch? 

Are you answering email or trying to finish that urgent job with the kids climbing all over you? Does your kids making noise by screaming or snatching toys with each other?

Well, it’s not just you. It’s happen because children also affected by this pandemic due to nationwide school closures. Children usually will become restive if being stuck for quite a long time inside the house whatever the circumstances is. Due to this situation, they will always find something to do in order to release their restless energy. Don’t be stressed out. We as working parents must get creative to keep them fun and exciting by mixing up several activities for our kids. We can switch between choices to keep them busy while we can get time to concentrate on work. 

Here are some enjoyable activities that you can include in your kids timetable during lockdown while you can continue to finished that urgent job.

1. Make origami animals

Sometimes a piece of paper is all they need to keep them occupied and entertained. Origami animals are the most popular choice of origami among kids. They are a bunch of easy and medium origami animals to choose from including cat, fish, fox, bird and frog. Beside fun to fold, this art of paper folding from China and Japan also have several advantages in development of children such as boosts memory and imagination, build cognitive abilities and improve concentration. With the used of colourful paper, kids will surely enjoy these activities and will be amazed to see them to take shape.

2. Drawing or Painting

My five-year-old boy loves to draw since he was only two years old. He can draw his favourite cartoon characters up to one hour if I let him. Now that we introduce him to water colour, he enjoys it even more. Drawing is one of the activities that come naturally to every child. All they need is a piece of paper and a crayon to create their own masterpiece while you not only can answer that call and email calmly, but even can finished that pile of work.

3. Play Dough

My mom is an excellent cook. She will make pastry or kuih for breakfast or tea break and at the same time will spend some amount of dough for the boys to play with. To top up the excitement, she even put some food colouring to make the dough colourful. My both sons enjoy making any kind of creation be it animals or fake foods like pizza or curry puff. These fun activities will surely lift up kids creativity while strengthen their fine motor skills. For extra learning, you can also guide or encouraged them to make letters, numbers and shapes.

4. Puzzles

Some will say that puzzles are old school. But this puzzles piece is tremendous learning tools that teach kids a bunch of skills like hand eye concentration and problem solving skills while they trying to forces that pieces together. Basic in choosing the appropriate one is based on age. You don’t want your kids to end up being frustrated and give up if the puzzles are too difficult, or get bored and not challenges enough if the puzzles is too simple. For these activities, you can also give your kids some support to complete the whole by giving them some verbal guidance.

5. Pretend Play

Pretend play is one of the most exciting activities that my boys loves to play. These kinds of activities will let their mind run wild and surely will boosts their imagination and creativity. There are few kind of pretend play that they enjoy playing. Since my five year old son is in preschool, he loves to play school with his brother. They will exchange who will be the teacher. But their favourite pretend play is going to camping. They will used sofa as a transport, blankets and pillows to create their imagination. I sometime enjoy watching them pretend to be by the beach or sitting around the fire. They could play this for up to half day and I can finished my job peacefully.

Last but not least, you can always trick your kids with popsicle. Some says that eating popsicle in the shower can always calm the overwhelmed kids. And because of that, I always make sure that I have that sweet treats in my freezer all the time.