Shake up Your Kids’ Learning Routine With Activity Bingo
Now that many of us are ( damn it looking) a week and a half of physical distancing – that is, trapped in a house with our kids – it’s time for a Social Security check. How is everyone doing with their academic schedule ? Have you already turned into an extraordinary home teaching teacher? Or did your kids play video games nonstop for 10 days?
We all fall somewhere on this spectrum when we try to figure out which schedule or routine (or lack thereof) works best for our children – and the family in general. Everyday life these days is one long exercise of trial and error. So if you find that an over-structured day isn’t right for you, but you want some fun way to make sure kids are doing more than just revisiting old episodes of SpongeBob , you can try what I call “Activity Bingo”. “
Activity Bingo is a diagram that looks like a regular bingo board, but instead of numbers, you write down different academic activities in each square. As soon as the children complete one line – any line! – they’ll get … whatever you decide makes sense as a break or a reward. Maybe they can watch the show or earn some other screen time not related to educational activities. Or maybe it’s when you promise to take a break from work you need to get done to play a board game with them or run outside.
Kids of Steel gives us an example of this with a similar fitness-themed Bingo card, which is also a good idea:
Here are some academic ideas to get you started:
- Read 20 minutes
- Collect the puzzle
- Draw a picture
- Build a LEGO masterpiece
- Write a letter to your loved one
- Take a virtual tour of an interesting place
- Play Prodigy for 20 minutes
- Doodle with Mo Willems
- Creating a video with stop- motion animation
- Write a story
- Write a poem
- Conduct a science experiment
- Write a song to Chrome Music Lab
- Visit the time of virtual history
You can work with the board as fashionable or as fast as you like. Create a complex graphic version on your computer for printing, or draw boxes on a piece of paper and let the children fill in the blanks (which will give them something to do, which will pass the time for a few extra minutes). Scan and make copies so they can cross out the steps taken every day, or use the same copy and cover the squares with items you already have at home (blocks, connect 4 tokens, whatever).
Another option, less game-like, but also more flexible than a full-fledged schedule: Make an academic checklist, as suggested by this parent on the COVID-19 group and Children’s Employment on Facebook:
Or just let them watch TV all day; I’m not here to judge.