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Pandemic Social Distancing Activities

The pandemic has proved challenging as we are forced to slow our fast paced lives and hunker down at home during the outbreak. As we practice social distancing, we’ve come up with a few new ways to add adventure to this temporary way of life. We are deciding to take seemingly ordinary activities and turn them into opportunities to learn and spend time together as a family. Here are a few of our recent adventures that maintain social distancing as well as a slight sense of adventure.

Tidy Up Your Neighborhood

Recent warmer temperatures have made the stay at home situation more bearable. Opportunities to get outside and breathe some fresh air help alleviate stress and allow for more physical activity. We took advantage of a sunny late afternoon to walk a short stretch of county road near our home and pick up debris in the ditch. We found your typical soda bottles and fast food containers; enough to fill an entire lawn and leaf trash bag. With a few more weeks of staying home and sunny skies in the forecast, we’ll be challenging ourselves to clean up another few miles of roadway in the weeks to come.

Time Capsule

We are living through history right now. Decades from now, textbooks will have chapters dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic and my grandkids will be asked to interview me for a class project. How will we be able to summarize this experience for future generations? This COVID-19 time capsule activity was shared with me on social media and I just HAD to have my family complete it. This packet was published by News800.com and was designed by LONG Creations. The packet is available for FREE here.

With 11 pages, the packet captures information about how we are feeling, how we are coping, what activities are keeping us busy and how we are celebrating important events during the pandemic. For my stoic boys, the packet was an ice breaker. It alowed them to open up about some of their fears, what was upsetting about this time as well as what was positive about the situation. The packet kept us busy for a few hours and will be a nice memento of this unprecedented experience.

Book Series

With no soccer practice, baseball clinics or church activities to attend in the evenings, we have more time to spend making home cooked meals and hanging out. To fill the post dinner hours with something other than screens, I ordered a few books on historical people whom I thought my boys would enjoy learning more about from the Who Was? series. The Who Was? series website says the books tell the stories of trailblazers, legends, innovators and creators. We ordered titles on Rosa Parks, Anne Frank, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci and The Wright Brothers. With ten chapters per book, we figure we can spread the series over the next 4-6 weeks. Nightly family reading will be a routine we can create in the chaos and gives us something to look forward to.

Learn a New Skill

We are using the time at home to hone a new skill. We introduced the idea of cooking and baking by letting the boys make cookies on their own; start to finish. They are seven and ten years old, so I did a bit of assisting by getting the bowl down from a high shelf and put the cookie sheet in oven. For the rest, they were on their own. Using a bag of cookie mix, they figured out how to read the directions, start the oven, added the ingredients and of course taste tested the dough before it went in the oven. Plus, one of them did it in Christmas jammies. I think later this week, we might tackle starting the washing machine. These new life skills will come in handy.

Get Outside

We found a trail in the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge near our house that we’d never explored. The geese are back and were busy ‘talking’ to us on the Mahnomen Trail. There’s something about walking in nature that connects people. The boys chattered on about their video game conquests and the flips and tricks they can perform on the trampoline our oldest got for his birthday. Through the crunching on boots on melting snow, they also talked about deeper topics. We also brain stormed ideas for activities we could do at home for the next couple of weeks. At one point our 10-year-old reached over and held my hand. Melted my heart and was a definite mood booster.

Themed Days

This idea came from the boys themselves. They have Fun Fridays at school, so they thought we could implement this concept at home. Friday’s and Saturday’s at home will now be called “Root Beer Float Friday’s” and “Saturday Morning Muffins.” I love their creativity. Friday night we scooped ice cream for floats and watched a movie together. Saturday morning we sat around in our jammies munching muffins. One positive of this pandemic is that we are forced to slow down and take time to enjoy simple pleasures.

Reading Retreat

With schools closed for the next two weeks, we are looking to create routine and maintain learning. Our family will be trying to stick to a schedule of outdoor play, reading, chores, journaling and hopefully take advantage of free online academic resources. Part of our new normal will include reading for 60 minutes each day, broken into three chunks. To make this task a little easier, the boys set up a reading retreat in the basement. The retreat is stocked with books, a couple stuffed animals and blankets and of course, snacks.

J-ello Jigglers

The name alone peeked the boys’ interest and they were all in for creating fun J-ello shapes.  I can’t believe we’ve never done this before, but it was a blast.  I found some great tips on how to make sturdy jigglers here.  We used two 6oz packages of J-ello in orange and raspberry flavors.  A little bit of laughter while we jiggled our J-ello was just as refreshing as this tasty treat.

Bird Seed Cookies

As winter wanes and spring struggles into season in Minnesota, we thought we’d help the birds who are returning from their southern migration.  I stole this recipe for bird seed cookies from Pinterest and mixed up a quick batch.  We let it set for a few hours (we probably should have waited longer) and then hung the cookies from tree branches in our yard.  We also used a few pipe cleaners strung with cereal to add to the birdie feast.  The boys are checking daily to see if the cookies are beeing consumed.

Brighten Someone’s Day

The most vulnerable populations during this pandemic are often the least technology savvy.  While they need to physically distance themselves, we need to be sure they are still well socially connected.  My grandparents are in their eighties and live in an assisted living facility that has not been allowing visitors now for over a week.  Residents here are confined to their small apartments unable to gather even for meals.  The situation sparked an idea. 

The Plan

We can’t go inside the building, but we can still show them our love from outside its brick walls.  The call went out to a handful of relatives: meet in the parking lot with a LARGE sign like you’d make for a baseball game or a race.  We will then stage ourselves outside the second floor apartment window of Grandpa and Grandma.  Once in place, we call them and tell them to look out the window.  There we will be, holding our signs and waving.  We ride at 4:00pm. 

So we did it.  We made our signs, everyone showed up on time and we got into position.  My aunt placed the call.  My Grandpa answered and after a bit of doing, they both appeared at the window.  At first they were confused and then you could see their huge smiles as they realized we’d all gathered, still trying to maintain social distancing ourselves, under their window to wave and cheer.  They waved back and pointed and squinted to read our signs.  Then they opened the window and you could hear the joy in their voices.  Of course, Grandma wouldn’t let us leave before she could send down a take home box of cookies. 

I’m sure this event will be the talk of Dassel Lakeside Assisted Living for the next week, but the memory will live so much longer in my heart. 

Later this week, we’ll be going off schedule on the Family Alphabet Adventures. The new puzzles I ordered on Amazon should be here by Tuesday. I had a Lego stashed away for our letter L activity. We will be taking on Family Alphabet Adventure J: jigsaw puzzles and junk food and Family Alphabet Adventure L: Legos and licorice. Like and follow Mommy Baggage below for more ideas on how to keep adventure alive no matter the situation.

Happy Adventuring, Rochelle

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1 thought on “Pandemic Social Distancing Activities”

  1. Rebecca Niemela says:
    March 23, 2020 at 6:26 pm

    We hiked the Mahnomen Trail last Sunday and the Blue Hill Trail this Sunday! So awesome to have them in our back yards!

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