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10 Things to Keep Kids Occupied While Working From Home
24 January 2022
The flexible work culture of Copylab has always been important to us in maintaining a healthy personal and professional life.
Though the circumstances are obviously very different right now, it remains a central part of our efforts to keep our staff and clients happy.
It can be hard enough to stay on top of things with little ones during regular work-from-home days. But when home office meets home school meets quarantine meets one walk a day, keeping kids occupied while staying productive can become daunting.
We have a fair few working parents at the lab, so we asked them to share their top tips on how to keep their kids occupied while also managing fund commentaries, thought leadership pieces, and investment marketing clients across the world.
1. Plan Your Week
Indispensable for the parents, this one is equally advisable for the young ‘uns. With the help of some poster paper (and glitter, obviously) or a whiteboard, you can help your little ones make a schedule that will allow for their work and play to coincide with yours.
After some fun calendar ideas? Pinterest is our go-to for inspiration for calendars for children of all ages.
2. Audio books
There’s nothing quite like a good (audio)book – and, as it turns out, the comprehension benefits of listening and reading are almost indistinguishable!
David Walliams has been offering free audio story each day, and with 7 World’s Worst Children episodes already aired, that’s some serious binging to be done!
3. Get Active
There’s nothing quite like dancing it out to get the heart rate up!
Ragdolly Annas is offering interactive sessions to make sure your little ones are finding tune and rhythm. For the ultimate mid-day pick-me-up, we suggest you join them.
Jiggy Wrigglers are another interactive dance and movement provider with their own YouTube channel.
4. Mindfulness
After something milder? Cosmic Kids offers a kids’ yoga and mindfulness class, also available via their YouTube channel. And this one comes with teachers’ approval – meditation has been proven to help children reduce stress and anxiety and increase attentiveness, so many schools are already offering it along with regular classes.
5. Get Crafty
Draw a rainbow with your child and put it in your window for children to see when they’re out for their one walk a day! The materials you use are entirely up to you: so far we’ve seen glitter, fingerpainting, regular paint … the possibilities are endless!
6. Education, education, education:
For many kids, summer holidays are still two months away. Here’s some educational apps to help keep on top of things:
Maths:
or practice some phonics with Katie’s classroom
For your older kids, here are some online resources to help with any last-minute GCSE revision
7. Bug Hunt/Nature Walk
Make use of your one walk a day and see how many plants/animals your kids can name!
Models not included!
8. Cook / Bake
For those of you with older kids, now’s a great time to remind them that one day, they’ll need to move out and the magical cooking/cleaning fairy will vanish. So why not get them to start a Pinterest board with some recipes they’ve been wanting to try?
Maybe even let them take over making dinner one night? Mob Kitchen provides delicious recipes for under £10, and a lot of them are plant-based.
Cooking with little ones? Kitchen Buddies provides family-friendly recipes that are simple to execute and are great fun for kids to get involved.
9. Coping Calendar
A helpful list of actions to do daily (maybe even combined with a mindfulness exercise) will help overcome the stress and anxiety in these stressful and anxious times.
Whether it is writing a list of things you are grateful for, or sorting out the sock drawer, we recommend you join your little ones with your action-a-day.
Just a few minutes each day has a massive impact over the course of a week. You can make your own, or Action For Happiness has put together a great calendar that you can sign up for.
10. And for the parents…
… a bit of culture.
Hundreds of galleries and theatres including the Royal Opera House, MoMa, and the Louvre have taken to the digital world.
Between them, they’re offering masterclasses, live performances, and virtual visits, available in your living room with no dress code and no queue for the bar during intermission.