How I kept my child engaged during COVID-19 Lockdown( Part-2)

Continuing my first blog post here are few more activities we enjoyed doing at home during lockdown

Paper Flower Vase

I taught my daughter that how we can make a simple and elegant Flower Vase from recycling of waste paper which was very easy to make. We took all the papers. Folded them diagonally,trimmed and removed the excess papers and stapled them together. Then I cut a round circle for base and wrapped it all with Yellow chart paper. We also used strips of Red chart paper to make it more attractive. Then glued pompoms (made of wool) on it.

Doll Making

For this we took scraps of cloth, plastic bottle, broken stethoscope which was used as doll’s hands, googly eyes, red bindi, nylon bag belt. We used the belt’s fiber for making doll’s hair. My daughter made a round doll’s face with the clothes cuttings, wrapped it with white cloth. Then inserted it into bottle. We sewed a beautiful dress for our doll out of an old Saree. We glued eyes, bindi, mouth (cut out of bindi), hair. My daughter was very excited to play with her doll.

Crafts

We did a few crafts together. I started with Paper Pizza Craft. I cut a cardboard into a triangular shape. Cut the pictures of onion,tomato, cheese, red/ yellow peppers,pepperoni, mushrooms etc. from my daughter’s very old book and she pasted these pictures onto the slice. This craft is perfect for little hands and it came out really wonderful. Secondly, we did Flower Craft reusing her old notebook covers. We cut the Pink notebook covers in flowers form and Green notebook covers were used for leaves and stem. We pasted these with Fevicol on one of her notebook cover. Then we did Folded Heart Mouse Craft taking green notebook cover, black glitter paper, glue and scissors. We cut out a big Green heart for the body, a stringy tail, and small Red heart for the ears. I folded  the big Green heart in half and glue them together. Glued the tail inside the fold. Glued the ears, eyes and nose. Within few minutes it was ready. Then we did a colorful cute Snail Craft recycling old CD. I used the CD as shell for the snail. Just covered the CD with white paper and decorated it with different colored papers. I cut the snail face and using the glue, sticked the snail to the shell. Kids can get imaginative and animate their snail the way they like.

Law of Inertia

Remember Newton’s first law of motion, An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. So, in order to teach this concept to my daughter, I did this simple Coin Drop Experiment with her. Put a square cardboard on top of the glass. Put a coin on top of the cardboard. With a sharp flick, hit the card out from under the coin. The coin will drop into the cup. The coin has inertia, meaning it really wants to stay in one place. If you move the card slowly, it isn’t fast enough to overcome that force. If you flick it quickly, the coin stays in one place and then drops into the glass. Kids will be amused to see this.

Homemade Punching Bag

Kicking a punching bag is a good workout which has several benefits and also promotes hand-eye coordination in kids. We made a punching bag using old clothes and hanged it in door hinges. When kids are stressed and angry they can go and give some kicks. This punching bag will provide hours of exercise and fun for kids!

I hope these activities will be of some use to keep your kids occupied indoors. Happy learning!!!