Already feeling stir crazy? We totally understand. Adjusting to quarantine life on any level poses its challenges. While everyone else is passing around lists of movies to watch on Netflix, we put our creative minds together and wrote up an innovative list of tech-powered ways to stay entertained at home. Here’s what we came up with…
1. Build a website. Any kid old enough to know his or her way around a computer can learn valuable skills by building a website. Encourage them to choose a research topic or dream up a business and design a website on a free platform. Younger kids can learn how to upload photos and play with templates while older kids can hone their writing skills or venture into coding.
2. Create new automations. If you have abode devices and/or other smart devices at home, let your kids dream up new automations! Plug them into your abode app and see how smart your home becomes. (P.S. If you or your kids come up with cool automations, share them with us on Facebook! We want to see what you’re creating!)
3. Make a movie. Let your kids try their hand at filmmaking and see what they come up with! As long as they have a smartphone or tablet and access to free video editing software like VideoPad, HitFilm Express, or Apple’s iMovie, they can direct, film, and star in their own creation.
4. Develop Graphic Design Skills. Use a free tool like Canva to help your kids develop some design skills. They can start with templates and graduate to their own, original creations.
5. Build something cool. If you have a budding scientist, artist, or engineer at home, look into Arduino projects. It’s an affordable and simple way to start understanding hardware, software, and coding. There are loads of simple projects and the sky’s the limit for more advanced students!
6. Learn self-publishing. Encourage your aspiring writers to make their dream of becoming an author, a reality. They can learn how to format for Kindle easily and even market their own creation. You could have a published author among you in no time.
7. Take something apart. There’s no better way to understand how something works than by taking it apart and rebuilding it. Hand the toolbox over to your kids and let them go to town on a piece of furniture or some electronics (safely of course) that you’re confident can be put back together again.
8. Engineer something out of household objects. As we were researching for this blog, we stumbled across this list of amazing, kid-friendly engineering projects you can do from home. It’s too good not to share the whole thing.
9. Build a lightbox to practice photography. Dozens of YouTube videos walk you through how to create a lightbox with items you probably already have at home. Then, your kids can practice setting up different items for product style photos and shooting them with a smartphone. Bonus points for learning photo editing software!
10. Play hide and seek with your abode devices. Kids don’t know you have motion sensors and security cameras set up? Suddenly, you’re magic. Have them hide while you watch their every move on your abode app and call out where they are in the house without moving a muscle to go find them.
Good luck navigating this new and weird landscape in which we’re all holed up at home trying to protect one another. Creating memories and learning opportunities for your kids won’t be easy, but with the right tools, it certainly can be valuable!
