Staying Home: Activities for the Whole Family

This is a stressful time for families across the country. Schools are cancelled, many parents are working from home, and social distancing has closed many of the places families would normally go to have fun. Our office is doing everything we can to help keep our patients healthy during this uncertain time, and our efforts don’t stop at the office. We’ve compiled a list of our favorite activities for the whole family! 

(All information and links are up to date as of April 3, 2020) 

For the Family 

Having the whole family home can be overwhelming, but there are groups all over the world coming together to provide family entertainment and enriching activities from the safety of your home. If you’re looking for a family activity to take up an afternoon, take a virtual step out of the house (or even the country!) on one of these virtual tours: 

Social Activities 

Being separated from friends and family during this time is hard, but there are several companies working to bring people together virtually. If you’re craving some social interaction, these companies have got you covered: 

  • Zoom is a video conferencing platform with a free plan to help you and your social circle connected.
  • Netflix Party is a new extension for Netflix that allows friends with Netflix to host watch parties with a virtual chat! It is currently exclusively available on Chrome, which can be downloaded here.
  • Use Tabletop Simulator to play board games together (this is a paid gaming platform). 
  • Connect on Discord for playing games, book clubs, and more! 

For the Kids

Learning from home can feel overwhelming. Remember, the guidelines for learning from home will vary from age to age and school to school, but if you’re struggling to keep your school aged kids busy, these resources can be life savers! 

  • Bring science class home with Explorable and their easy and fun DIY science experiments. 
  • Have art class today! Fun Family Crafts has a huge collection of DIY projects to do with kids of all ages with supplies you probably have around the house or could grab on your next grocery run. 
  • Use the Audible free trial to read children’s books with your kids. 
  • Find learning activities for children kindergarten and up with PBS’s Everyday Learning resources.
  • Check out digital books and audiobooks from your local library using OverDrive! If you do not have a library card for your local library, many libraries are currently supporting virtual library cards, so check with your local library for more information.  
  • Play learning games and find physical activities at GoNoodle! 

For the Health Nut 

Many companies and gyms are offering online classes. Here is a list of some of our favorites: 

  • Peloton is offering a 90-day free trial that’s packed with workouts you can do from home without their equipment. 
  • Planet Fitness is providing free “work ins” on their Facebook page, no equipment needed! 
  • Orange Theory released a set of workouts on their Instagram after they closed their gyms. 
  • For our yogi friends, Yoga with Adrienne offers a variety of practices on her YouTube channel, including a newly created playlist Yoga for Uncertain Times. 

We hope this list of resources will help you keep the members of your family happy and healthy through this stressful time. We are still here for you throughout this difficult period, and we are anxiously awaiting the day we can resume normal operations.