Isolation ideas {for kids and the young at heart!}

I wrote a post of ideas for things to do while in isolation for adults, but had actually started my list for children. I had to create a new one, because fair is fair!

So here are some ideas to do with the kids, teens, adults, anyone really… 🙂

1. Play Categories. This was a staple when I was a kid, it still is, really. Grab something to write with and some paper for each player, then choose and write down some categories along one side. Animals, colours, boy’s names, girl’s names, or gender-neutral names, countries, city/town, state, bird, flower/tree, body of water, singer/group/band/musician, TV show/Movie… You get the idea, you can tailor them to things your family enjoys. A hockey player’s family might add hockey teams, and a restaurant owning family might add things you can find on our menu. Start with 10 or so categories. You can decide upfront how strict or lenient you’ll be, vomit green for V may or may not be a colour, and a fly may or may not be something you’d find on said menu, your house, your rules. Choose a letter (we used to do it by putting a newspaper down, closing our eyes, dropping the pen onto it and using the letter it landed on, but that is showing my age!). You can take turns or draw them from a hat or whatever you’d like. The game begins… Our letter is B (for example), ready, set, go… Everyone races to fill in every category with something starting with that letter. The game stops when the first person has filled every space. You count 1 point for each unique word. (If two people have ‘cat’ for an animal that starts with C, neither gets a point). At my house, this is a challenging game. You have to write so quickly and hope the ideas keep flowing to you, or you’ll be caught with lots of blank spaces!!!
2. Put on a song or playlist and have a dance or sing-along party. Costumes and wooden spoons as microphones optional.
3. Make a scavenger hunt, outside or inside, depending on your circumstances. I can be as simple as 10 things, something green, something fuzzy, a square, or more challenging: a blue pen, a book with a heart on it… again make it fit the circumstances.
4. Head – body – tail/feet game. Another staple. I can’t tell you how many creatures have been created while we’ve been sitting at restaurants awaiting our food… Take a piece of paper, any size (ours are usually quite small) and fold it into three sections. The first person draws a head on the top section, any type of head, human, animal, alien, leaving lines for the neck that go onto the second section. Fold the head under so it can’t be seen. The next person draws a body and arms – or tentacles – or something in the middle section of their creation, leaving marks on the final section to show where the body ends, and then without looking at the head, folds both the first and second sections under for the last person (or first person again) to draw legs or a tail or whatever is at the bottom of their creature.  Ideally everyone is working on a different one at the same time, so you might draw a head on one, the body on the next and the feet on the third if there are three of you playing. And then when they’re all done, the big reveal! 
5. Leave a trail. This was a game I first played with my Girl Scout troop when I was a kid. You can modify it to play indoors or in a city or whatever your circumstances may be, here is the outdoor, non-city version. At the end can be a smiley face or a piece of candy or a ‘hooray!’ sign, doesn’t need anything fancy. Follow the path and the clues made from sticks and stones showing you whether you go right or left or stop, to modify you can use balled up socks and silverware or something! Again, you can have two paths going at one time each person or group making one for the other, in teams if you have a lot of people… Make a path with 5 or 10 directions to follow. Just make sure you have a start and a finish.
6. Squiggle or blob animals. Take a paintbrush and randomly make a little blob of paint on a piece of paper, or if you don’t have paint available, you can just make a squiggly line. (allow the paint to dry) Give the blob or squiggle to someone and have them create an animal. The less direction the better. They can turn it any way. Use the entire blob to make the animal, or use the blob as just a bit of the animal, whatever, no rules. I sent out blobs to everyone in my family in the post and asked them to create an animal and send me a photo of it, I’m still awaiting a few, but I’ve got 9 back, and they are amazing!! Everyone commented on how much fun they were to receive and create, one of my friends has sent a bunch of her own out. And the squiggle lines? When my sister was a kid, she had her squiggle published in the newspaper, clever bunny (though I seem to remember what she drew was a squirrel). Make sure the kids create ones for you too!
7. The continuing story… Start telling a story, after a line or two, say: and then… the next person continues the tale for a few lines, and then…
8. Charades. Write down a bunch things, words or actions or tv shows or animals or books or a combination depending on the ages of those playing and act them out with no sounds or words. Tailer them to your family’s interests and abilities. Pop them in a bowl or a hat. Youngest goes first. Because, well, you know…Whoever guesses right gets to go next. (My husband is the king of knowing the answer but never shouting it out, because he doesn’t like to be in the spotlight!!)
9. The Great Closet clean up! (or drawer or desk) It’s time to clean up those drawers and closets, but make it a game. Try on some clothes, have a fashion show, see who can wear the most articles of clothing at a time… or clothes that don’t fit have to be worn on a different part of the body…
10. Paint something together. I love my daughter’s toy chest. It was a beautiful Hope chest that came with our house, but it was an ugly yellow stain. I had these lovely fairy decals I thought would be perfect, and then decided instead of just putting them on I’d have my daughter, who was about 5 at the time help. So I painted a base colour, and she painted a bunch of big, bright flowers. I then added the fairies, and we have this beautiful memento of a time long since past. You could just paint a rainbow and pop it in the window!!!
11. Search for signs of spring. Outside in my yard there are crocuses, robins pulling up worms, the forsythia is in bloom, there are grape hyacinths poking through, there is the occasional bud on our trees, the Ospreys have returned from their southern winter escape… What can you find either out in your yard, or in a nearby park, or even on a city street?
12. Create an indoor fort. Pillows, blankets, sheets, cushions, some of those clothes that are going to be donated because they don’t fit… I mean, I think you’ve got this. No better place for an indoor picnic than a fort.
13. Bake something together. Bread. Cookies. A cake. Or just make lunch or dinner or breakfast together. If supplies or money are short, Log-cabin toast was always a treat when I was growing up. Make some toast. Sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar, and cut it into strips. Stack the pieces two one way, the next row two the other, (sort of like a hollow Jenga game) to form a log cabin.
14. Make chalk art for everyone to see. Fill your driveway or sidewalk with joy and sunshine to bring a smile to passersby. And to  you.

Please leave me a comment if you try any of these ideas, or if you have some to add. Stay safe. Stay happy. Be kind to one another, and the planet. xo