The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, many families usually travel to spend them with a family that lives in other cities or simply take a well-deserved vacation. But as we know, this year things will be very different and we must stay home due to the pandemic.
But staying at home does not mean that we spend those days discouraged or boring, because we can take advantage of them to spend quality time with our children. To give you some ideas, we share 13 activities to do with the children at home during the Christmas holidays .
Movie marathons
We start our list with a classic activity: movie marathon. Although it is true that by organizing ourselves well we can enjoy a family movie any day of the week, on vacation it seems like turning the movie session into a movie marathon at home.
Organize fun games and activities
If our children are restless and like to be participating in games and activities that make them think, interact or move a lot, we can choose some special activities to do as a family.
For example, we can resort to some classic games such as hide and seek, faces and gestures or blind man, or choose an activity that helps stimulate their creativity, such as dancing, acting, painting and drawing.
Quiet game afternoons
If we are looking for a calmer or more relaxed option, we can choose to do activities in which there is not much movement or we can be seated at the table. Something that never fails are board games and puzzles .
Also, if our children know how to read and write, we can arrange puns, such as Stop, or High Enough pencil, or the classic Hangman or hung.
Have literary nights
We can choose between the classic storyteller, where mom, dad or some of the children who already know how to read tell a story to the whole family, or if everyone at home is a reader, establish an afternoon or hour of reading, and then tell each other about the book they are reading.
Cook together
Cooking with our children, in addition to being a fun way to spend time together, helps them learn differently and practice mathematical and physical concepts by measuring and mixing ingredients.
In Babies and more we have many recipe ideas to make with children, so here are some lists that might interest them:
- 65 healthy recipes to make with children at home: breakfasts, snacks, lunches, dinners and desserts
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- 41 quick and healthy recipes to brighten up meals or dinners for the whole family
- 19 homemade pizza recipes to make with children and enjoy a fun family plan
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Do home experiments
Home experiments are another fun and different way for kids to learn some basic physics and chemistry concepts, and they also help develop important skills like language and memory.
“Travel” from home
The fact that we cannot leave the home does not mean that we cannot enjoy the wonders that are outside of it. Thanks to technology, we can transport ourselves to distant places and in other countries.
These are some of the collections of virtual tours of museums, cities and train trips that you can enjoy from the comfort of your home:
- 21 galleries and virtual visits to museums around the world to enjoy as a family while we stay at home
- Traveling without leaving home: a virtual tour of the most emblematic corners of the world
- Traveling without leaving home: a virtual tour of the corners of Spain
- Travel without leaving home: 11 virtual train trips to enjoy with children
Have theme days
One way to make sure we have an activity for the time we are at home is to organize theme days . For example, we can have a spa day and pamper ourselves a bit, or a sports day, in which they stay active through various activities such as dancing, stretching or yoga.
Cleanliness and order at home
In addition to thinking about doing fun activities to spend a nice vacation at home, we can also take the opportunity to organize ourselves and together spend one or more days to put order at home .
For example, if children will have new toys, we can take the opportunity to review what they no longer use and donate it, thus also avoiding excessive accumulation of these.
Reflect on the year ending
There is no doubt that this year was different from all those we have experienced. Doing our best to turn it into something positive, let us reflect with our children about all the good things that happened to us and the lessons that came to us after having lived it.
Make a vision board together
Surely everyone agrees that they hope not to have another year like this. So something we can do is think about how we would like the next five or ten years to be : what goals we would like to achieve, what character goals we would like to achieve, what things we would like to have. They can discuss it and later capture it with cutouts or drawings on a family vision board.
Make a list of purposes
This is a typical ritual of each end of the year, but not just talk about it: motivate the children to write down or draw their lists of resolutions for 2021 , and later keep them in a special place, so that in this way They can review them throughout the year and see how far they have come.
To rest
And finally, rest . It may seem absurd, but sometimes many parents worry about keeping our children entertained and because we are used to always doing things.
Therefore, let’s take advantage of some of our days at home to rest and relax as a family . May that also suit us all very well.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | 63 screen-free activities to entertain the kids while we stay home
