Make homeschooling fun with cardboard sculptures, a treasure hunt, toy parachutes and stop motion animation. These days we are all looking for more educational at home activities for kids. Scroll down to see our top 4 ideas!
Cardboard sculptures
Looking for STEAM enrichment activities? Here is a fun and easy Art and Engineering activity we did this week. Plus, it only uses things you have at home: cardboard and scissors!
To make these sculptures, first cut shapes from cardboard, then cut thin notches in the sides (make sure they are not too wide or they won’t hold). Connect the pieces together where you cut the notches to make sculptures!
We painted some of ours for more color. I also challenged the kids to see who could make the tallest sculpture. If any of you make sculptures, we would love to see them!
Treasure Hunt
As part of our Spring Break during the Coronavirus shelter-in-place order, I wanted to give my kids something different and more memorable than our regular stay-at-home activities. I thought why not make them a treasure hunt around our house and yard? I decided to use a little of the money we would have spent on spring break activities and ordered a “prize” for my kids. Then, I created some clues that lead them around the outside of our house. The last clue they found led them to a “treasure map” with an “X” on the spot where we hid their prize.
The kids really had to think critically and work on sequencing due to the nature of how I wrote the clues and their order. They also actively worked on problem solving and because they worked on it together, they had to cooperate and use teamwork!
My kids LOVED this activity. I mean, really loved it. They were running all over looking for clues, jumping from excitement when they found another one. When they finally found the prize they immediately asked if we could do another treasure hunt right away and without prizes. I made my clues and treasure map in Adobe Illustrator, but I found this free online resource for making your own map – https://treasuremaps.kadsoftwareusa.com/. They loved it so much they are making a treasure hunt for us!
Toy Parachutes
Check out the LOL Doll Parachute my 6-year-old made! Such a fun educational at home activity for kids made with items from in your house! After my daughter made her parachute, she took turns with her sister dropping it off the balcony at the top of our stairs and testing it against other toys that didn’t have parachutes to see which was the fastest/slowest.
If you’re looking for something STEAM or science related to do during this time away from school, check out the DIY Section at Kiwico through our affiliate link here: kiwi-crate.7eer.net/PD2kq! They have a list of ideas for science-related projects that can be done at home. We used their Parachute Toy Project for directions – kiwi-crate.7eer.net/kq7bv
Stop Motion Animation
Stop-motion animation is something I used to teach to my Middle School students back when I was a teacher, but now there are so many apps that make it easy for anyone to do! This makes a great educational at home activity for kids when the weather is not great, which has been most of the time we’ve been home unfortunately. I downloaded an app called Stop Motion Studio on our iPad and barely had to show my girls anything before they took it over and started making their own animations! They are obsessed and I ended up paying for the full version, which is $5, so they could add sounds, title cards and more.
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