20 ways to entertain kids during the quarantine

Are you looking for some awesome, FREE things for your kids to do now that they’re at home? Companies and individuals everywhere are stepping up with great new activities at NO COST to families who may be struggling to wear their work-from-home hats while also keeping up with the kiddos.

Honestly, there are so many cool things out there we can’t begin to cover them all here, but to get you started, here are 20 ways to entertain kids during the quarantine.

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Get a daily science experiment and cooking activity at Club SciKidz. How about a Humpty-Dumpty Egg Drop Challenge, or It’s Alive… a yeasty cooking experience!

Learn a new language with Duolingo! Choose from 36 different languages with leveled activities structured from beginner and up. Choose from so many including Spanish, Russian, Italian and…Klingon? What?

Paint with shaving cream! Grab some paper or a cookie sheet. Mix up some shaving cream with a drop of food coloring or watercolor paints for some swirly, lathering fun. Use a brush or fingerpaint!

Check out 123Homeschool 4 Me for over one million (MILLION!) free worksheets and activities, all printable and grouped by grade level from pre-K through 8th grade.

Travel far and wide with free virtual field trips. From Buckingham Palace to Mars, museums to zoos, you can visit all these places from your very own couch.

See inside a real beaver lodge or go upstream on a salmon run with live animal webcams in the Alaskan frontier. This experience is hosted by the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game.

Storytime from Space! Watch astronauts read cool stories about space FROM space. With both fiction and nonfiction titles, there are plenty of stories to choose from.

Does your kid love screen time? Check out our list of fun, educational, and FREE games. With everything from loveable cartoon characters to brainteasers for high schoolers, this list will keep ’em entertained.

On a rainy day, have fun indoors with Painter’s Tape. Build a highway system for toy cars, map out a hopscotch board on the kitchen floor, measure out a long-jump grid in the hall. Painter’s Tape is an easy clean-up for hours of entertainment.

Do you have a budding author at your house? Unleash the writer within at NoRedInk.  With hundreds of interest-based exercises for grades 5th through 12th, NoRedInk is offering their services for FREE at this time.

Got a roll of unused contact paper? Pull off the backing and tape it to your wall with the sticky side out. Instant Sticky Wall! Kids can create a masterpiece of whatever will stick!

Decorate a window with hearts to help connect with others during social distancing. This is a social media movement that’s gaining traction. Not only is it fun to decorate a window, but you can also go on a heart hunt through the neighborhood!

Access Time for Kids magazine, now offering their new digital collection of articles geared just for kids for FREE. Does your child have questions about the current state of the world?  Time for Kids is here to help with answers on their level.

Sign up your tween/teen in a Goodreads book club. There’s lots of online discussion about plenty of MG/YA books, as well as discussions of film, music, writing, current affairs and more. Stay social while distancing.

Is homeschooling blowing your mind? (Everybody knows Calculus, right?) Get your kids some FREE online tutoring given by a college student from MIT, Harvard, or Berkeley available to help grades K-12.

How about an epic marble run?  Try this fantastic engineering challenge for kids using cardboard, craft sticks, and hot glue. How should we position the sticks?  Which path will the marbles take?  How many will land in each cup at the bottom?

Printable curriculum packs are available at this website for reinforcing key learning concepts at each grade level. With both reading and math packs for kindergarten through 8th grade, your child can get a little extra help here.

Free drawing/doodling lessons with children’s book author Mo Willems, who is currently the artist-in-residence at the Kennedy Center. Tune in daily at 1:00 PM!

Make a DIY color scavenger hunt using color swatches/paint chips from a home-improvement store, or make your own with crayons, markers, or paint. Kids have to hunt for something that matches all their colors! What a great activity on nature walks.

Get three months of FREE lessons for guitar, bass, and ukelele from Fender. No credit card required, but hurry. Space is limited to the first 100,000 who sign up.

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School is canceled, which means you’re now not only a parent, secretary and CEO of your household, but you’re also the teacher, principal, lunch lady and coach! (Oh, and you might be trying to do your office job at home now too.)

If you’re looking for ways to keep your kids entertained while quarantined, here are some of my favorite FREE ideas:

• Watch astronauts read children’s books from space.
• Make this simple DIY ball ramp game.
• Watch live video feeds of giraffes, baboons, polar bears and more from the San Diego Zoo.
• Create new animals, build a habitat for them and so much more with Switch Zoo Animal Games.
• Learn a new language!
• This app adds music, sound effects and character voices to children’s books to create a totally new story time experience!
• Get free cooking and science experiments every day here.
• Try out Post-It Match—a DIY name recognition activity.
• Play free games featuring Elmo, Daniel Tiger and more at pbskids.org.
• Print out these at-home activity packs for math and reading at every grade level.
• Check out hundreds of thousands MORE worksheets.
• Play really cool Dr. Seuss games here.
• Watch these livestreams of real wildlife from Alaska.
• Brush up on your writing skills with this free trial writing course.
• Try a free trial of online courses for teens and adults.
• Don’t forget, you can watch every episode of The Rachel Cruze Show for free!

You and your kids might be feeling lonely right now. My friend—the newest Ramsey Personality—Dr. John Delony wrote an article about how to stay connected during social distancing here. He’s an expert on mental health and wellness, and he has so much wisdom to offer during these crazy times.