Staying home all day with small kids is hard. No one knows this better than you. What you really want is for them to stop bickering and destroying the place and sit down and play quietly with something educational the way you imagined they would when you contemplated being a parent.
The temptation to put a movie on — and then another and another and another — is great, especially if you are also trying to work.
But that strategy has a price: At some point they will have so much excess energy from sitting idle in front a screen there will be meltdowns.
Better toys! That's what you need. Toys that engage, entertain, and teach so you don't have to. Maybe, also, toys that you can play with together and both learn something.
Here are a few like that.
What's behind the screen?
When the kids are begging to use your phone or tablet, maybe suggest that they learn a little something about how that screen works first.
So many children's toys are built on circuits that kids will be thrilled to build their own with this Snap Circuit Skill Builder Science Kit ($29.99).
The best part? It's engaging enough to keep kids occupied for hours.
"I explained how all of the components worked and walked him through some of the labs in the book," says one reviewer. "Within a short amount of time, [my son, 7] was trying alternative circuits and building more labs on his own. He played with it for several hours that day and the next."
How to create an inventor.
If your kids love crafts but you need to focus on work, hand them the Think Box Inventors' Box ($24.99) and let it take their crafting urge up to inventing.
Lots of our greatest inventions happened by accident while people were trying to create other things. The Post-It note was originally considered useless until someone thought to use it to mark pages. Saccharin was discovered because of a spill. Fireworks came about because of a cooking accident.
What will your child invent? Who knows? But while she's doing it, you can get a moment to think.
"This is a great item for the creative soul," says one mom, in the reviews. "My 5 year old loved it. It's great for critical thinking and kept her busy for quite some time."
Dig for dinosaurs.
Got a kid who's obsessed with dinosaurs? There's an opportunity! Teach some archaeology skills with this MindWare Dig It Up: Dinosaur Eggs ($24.99) kit.
The clay eggs have dinosaurs in them and the small tools — a chisel and brush — are perfect for getting those fossils out intact. This is fun to do together. Or let the kids work alone or in groups.
"My 4 year old son had SO much fun digging out the Dino and guessing which one could be," says one reviewer. "He also loved learning all about them!"
Like Legos except with gears.
There is nothing like Legos to build fine motor skills, encourage creativity, and keep kids happily occupied for hours. But this Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! CycleGears ($14.99) game uses that idea to teach kids how gears work.
Also? Their creations are cycles! And that leads to a whole new game.
"From the moment he opened the box, [our 4 year old] was pouring over the drawings in the booklet as he built his model," says one reviewer. "He soon advanced to building creations on his own. You could see his 'gears' turning as he put the pieces together. I totally recommend this set to bring out the creativity and engineering skills in all little designers!"
This is exactly what the apocalypse needs.
You are stuck at home with the kids. They start building Remote Control Machines ($29.99). The machines become sentient. Now the children — and their robot army — are in charge.
This is your nightmare, maybe. But it's what the kids want. And right now, giving them something they want that isn't sugar or another movie seems like a good idea.
This kit will help your child (8 and up) build remote-controlled machines look like animals. And the animals' movements are realistic. If you're looking for a plot point for the novel you're writing in isolation, they don't get much better than this.
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