Has it happened that your kid has a look of utter boredom after actively playing with his/her toys and says, "Mom, what do I do now?"

Has it ever happened that you're in the middle of something and that's precisely when your child decides he needs your attention? 

Has it happened that your children want to do some activity but you're drawing a blank?

I bet it has happened to you...on more than one occasion! 

This has become especially apparent during the Covid-19 induced quarantine. There are plenty of moments in the day when the kids are dawdling around the house, feeling like they want to do something but don't know what. Furthermore, as a mom working from home, I am not necessarily able to be with them all day. Yet, I feel like I need to have a ready supply of ideas to pull out of my hat! Wouldn't it be nice to create a setup where our children can take the initiative themselves to decide what they want to do as an activity? Well, this is what prompted me to make the "Boredom Buster Box" aka Krishnav's Idea Box aka WDID Box (*WDID = What Do I Do?). 

What is it?

It is essentially a jar filled with small folded-up strips of paper which contain ideas of activities, big and small. Whenever my son wants to do something, he can just reach inside the jar and pull out 1 or more strips of paper. The intent is for him to seek ideas for independent play and creative activities, especially if Mama is busy or indisposed. 

What are the ideas you have dropped inside the jar?

Well, this is precisely the purpose of this post. The Boredom Buster Box has been quite effective and useful so I'd love to share the ideas with you all. The ideas are a mix of my own plus that of my 6.5 year old son. We created it together as a mini project in itself. 

Here goes the list (organized according to different topics/themes but essentially all thrown together into the jar):

Lego-related challenges (I got a lot of inspo from Little Bins for Little Hands)

• Use Legos to create a catapult
• Make a Lego maze
• Create your initials using Legos
• Make a Lego zipline
• Create a model of your room using Legos
• Lego symmetry: Set up one side of the baseplate with an abstract image and have your child copy the same design using the principles of symmetry)

An actual functioning catapult engineered by my son
(with some help from Little Bins from Little Hands website)

Math riddles

• Math art: refer to this Zyndtel Design for printouts which we liked
• Include a few fun math brain teasers that are age-appropriate

Arts and Crafts

• Refer to a YouTube art channel for a tutorial on drawing your favorite cartoon character
• Create your own Sistine Chapel like Michelangelo - stick an empty paper under the table and create your own artwork under the table

My Michelangelo working on his masterpiece 

Writing

• Write a nonfiction story about any topic (or assign a specific topic)
• Write 5 sentences about _______. 
• Write a poem about ________.

Refer to books and activities you have at home (sometimes they just need to be reminded of what

they have already)

• Read a few pages from so-and-so book or do the read-aloud from the Epic app 
• Do a puzzle or make your own DIY puzzle 
• Play Bingo! 
• Play with your Beyblades 
• Pull out your boardgame (e.g, Connect-4, Snakes & Ladders, Uno, etc)

Printables (printed and kept at a designated place for your child to easily access when needed)

• Spot the difference printables (here and here)
• Free coloring sheets (many sources out there, for example try this link from Little Bins for Little Hands)

Exercise

• Do 10 jumping jacks, 4 burpees, 5 push-ups (repeat 3 times!) 
• Ball catching practice against the wall
• Do Cosmic Yoga on YouTube

Others

• A to Z scavenger hunt: find items around the house starting with each letter of the alphabet
• Create your own scavenger hunt for your parents!
• Line up wooden blocks and then create the domino effect
• Call up any of your family members for a quick chat (grandparents, friends) - I recommend Caribu app which is like Zoom for kids
• Create your own campsite with a makeshift tent
• Make your own riddles to ask Mom and Dad

There are endless possibilities! Hopefully this gives you ideas to keep your kids busy and out of your hair when needed! Of course, feel free to adapt to your child's age level, and please do share any ideas you might have as well. And if you liked this post, please share with your friends as well.

Cheers!

Whichever part of the world we’re in right now, as parents we are all on the same boat with regards to our children. It’s probably never been tougher to be a parent during these trying times when we are under some form of isolation due to Covid-19. How do we keep our children busy, happy, and entertained during these long hours of being indoors? One week into our lockdown situation in Singapore, I was already tearing my hair out! It is then that I started forming ideas on how to create a routine for my kids. In this post today, I’d like to share one of the ideas that has been very successful for us five weeks into our “iso life”.

What is the idea?
I instituted something called the “Grandparent Academy”. The concept is simple: I set up time for the grandparents to teach something to my children five days a week at a specific time of day. It is built into their daily schedule and something they look forward to! Of course, this idea can easily be applied to other family members like older cousins, aunts, or uncles living far away.

Why it worked for us
The secret sauce is basically that it is a win-win situation for everyone involved! For my kids, it is a way for them to learn something new or interesting from someone other than their teacher or parents. For the grandparents, it is a way to interact with their grandchildren while also staying connected to family far away. For us parents, it’s an hour of our day free of the kids, allowing us to work or take a break. The bonding over these 5 weeks of Grandparent Academy has been incredibly heartwarming to see! I dare say, my older one has learned more from these sessions than from school remote learning itself!

How to implement it

- Start off with 20-30 mins sessions and increase the length of time as needed (depending on age and attention level of your child)
- It's good to plan out topics in advance for the week ahead. That way, the grandparents (or whoever is teaching) can think about the topic and how they want to teach it. In our case, the grandparents found fun YouTube videos or photos as visual aids for these sessions. It's really cute to see how they get into it!

- Keep the topics varied and diverse. Also ask what your child would like to learn more about!

- Follow the child's lead - if they are asking questions and seem engaged, that's a great sign! If you happen to go off on a tangent, don't sweat it. The intent is to have a session to talk and discuss about things - not a rigid learning structure per se

- Introduce surprise guests to mix things up! Even though it's called "Grandparent Academy", we've had older cousins, aunts, and uncles come to teach as well!

Topics we have explored so far

I had talked about Grandparent Academy on my Instagram and have received numerous messages from people who have also adopted this idea with great success. The question I receive frequently is: what are the topics you cover during these sessions? Well, these sessions are geared more towards my 6.5 year old son so the topics I share below are relevant to the 5-7 age group. Having said that, hopefully these ideas inspire you to come up with topics that are suitable for your child or to adopt a modified level of these topics.

• How does a car work?
• Space related topics
• Solar system and the different planets
• How a rocket launches into outer space
• Cycles of the moon
• Solar and lunar eclipses
• How to solve a rubik’s cube
• Answering fun riddles together (here's a link)
• Learning about cricket (or any sport that is of interest to your child)
• Learning about an animal of choice (we've covered cheetahs so far)
• Mythology
• Dush Avatar (learning about the different avatars of Lord Vishnu over each session)
• Ramayan stories
• Mahabharat stories
• History of India
• Stories from the Independence Movement (like Salt March)
• Famous characters and personalities - Jhasi ki Rani, Tipu Sultan, Mahatma Gandhi, etc 
• Math: Math made fun in daily life
• Learning to tell time on an analog clock
• Spelling bee
• Learning about continents and oceans
• Reading a book together online
• Trivia Quiz (many websites but here is one)
• Learning or practicing a language (in our case, we do Hindi and Thai)
• Learning about flags of the world - what do the colors represent, etc
• Reading and discussing poems and learning how recite them expressively 
• Learning about a specific country (so far we have started with India and the USA)
• Reverse sharing time: The child teaches or presents something they want to talk about

Other topics I've heard from those who tried out "Grandparent Academy" were: Morse code, science-related topics, inventions and how they came to be, cowboys, Harry Potter, lifecycle of a particular animal, and animal habitats.

If you do decide to try this out, do drop me a line and let me know how it worked for you! I would also love to hear about the topics you covered. 

Good luck!