There's nothing like the snowy days of winter and the rainy days of spring for keeping children stuck inside the house. Everyone gets a bad case of cabin fever, so try one of these educational activities the next time your kids are bouncing off the walls!
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Indoor Educational Activities
1. Build Tents
Building tents in the living room is always a favorite activities when kids are stuck inside, except don't just build tents and let the kids play. Act out your geography or history lessons.
Pretend you're Egyptians living in ancient Egypt. What will you cook? How did the ancient Egyptians spend their days? If you're studying medieval Europe, the Native Americans, or wagon trails, spend the day re-enacting the time period.
You don't need to be limited to history lessons. Do the same for geography lessons. Pretend to living in London, Paris, or Timbuktu.
2. Reading Together
Reading together is always popular. Pick up some new books to enjoy with the kids. Don't limit yourself to just chapter books. Find good picture books, coffee table books of art, with or audio books to enjoy.
Cook up some hot chocolate, bake cookies, and pull out blankets. Snuggle together in the living room as you read.
Everyone in the family can curl up and enjoying reading great literature together.
3. Enjoy Poetry
Poetry tends to be a neglected subject. So use a day you're stuck in the house to enjoy poetry together.
Pull out your favorite poetry books. Look up poems on the internet. Read your favorite poets.
After spending some time enjoying great poetry together, try writing your own poems. Hold a recital in the evening to enjoy your children's masterpieces.
4. Do Art
The next time the kids are whining because they're stuck inside, pull out the art supplies. Have the kids make clay pots and try their hand at chalk pastels.
Don't limit yourselves to painting on paper. Create sculptures from paper, paint jars and cans to be pencils containers, or build a castle from cardboard. The sky's the limit!
Put on an art show in the evening for each other. Exhibit the art throughout the house. Lay out cookies, juice, and tea. Pretend you're art critiques wandering through finding wonderful things to say about the artwork.
5. Science Experiments
My kids can never get enough of science experiments. Mixing vinegar and baking soda
to watch it explode is an experiment young children adore. Encourage your kids to build a volcano around the mixture and add some red food coloring.
Later pull out a science book and work slowly through the experiments. Chat about what you learned when the experiments work and discuss what may have gone wrong when they fail. Often you learn just as much, if not more, for the experiments that fail as the experiments that succeed.
When your kids get cabin fever from being stuck inside, enjoy alternative educational activities instead of going batty from the kids bouncing off the walls.
What educational activities do you enjoy when you're stuck inside?
Sara Dennis is a homeschooling mother of 6 children ages 4 through 18. After much research into homeschooling in 2000, she and her husband fell in love with classical education and used it as the foundation for their homeschool. Sara blogs at Classically Homeschooling, and you can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+.
