Choose one a day to get you through the next couple of weeks.

1. Interview a family member.

Taking the time out to learn more about the people in your family might surprise your children. Get them to dig deep and think about their questions and their responses. Save these interviews so you can read them again.

2. Measure the area and perimeter of each room in your home.

This is a math skill everyone needs to know how to do. Bonus points if they do the windows too so they’ll know what size curtains would work!

3. Graph the types of birds that frequent your yard or windows.

Bird watching is fascinating for everyone. Check out these tips for identifying birds. Once you’ve tracked your birds, make a graph to show how many of each kind were in your backyard during a certain period of time.

4. Be completely silent for 60 minutes, then write about the experience.

In a world where there are so many distractions, it’s amazing what we notice when we’re silent. Also – a good one for parents and carers!

5. Build a “fable fort” out of blankets and chairs. Camp in it all day while you create stories to tell your family over dinner.

Human beings love telling stories. What’s a fable? Learn about them and read some here.

6. Alphabetise the spices in your kitchen.

Think only books can be alphabetized? The cook in your family will appreciate an organized spice cabinet.

7. Stay up late and stargaze.

When you don’t have to go to school in the morning, it can be okay to stay up late once in a while. Stretch out and watch the stars. If kids are curious about them, show them how to learn more. 

8. Design and build puppets that perform a show about multiplication.

Thinking about things in new ways drives new learning. It’ll be fun to get puppets teaching about math, and really nothing helps kids solidify their understanding than teaching someone else.

9. Construct a family tree.

Make this one wide-open and out of the box. Challenge your kids to create any kind of tree they want and include anyone who they consider to be family.

10. Learn ten new big words. Write them in marker on your bathroom mirror.

Don’t worry, marker comes off mirrors easily. Meanwhile, yay for big words like: ubiquitous, flippant, and redundant.

11. Collect leaves from ten different (non-harmful) plants. Sort them by size, colour, and texture.

Go outside and find ten different leaves and then compare them!

12. Put your favourite book, toy, and keepsake on a small table in sunlight. Draw or paint a full colour still life.

This is a great way to express your love for something. For a variation on this, try out different ways to paint the still life “like” a famous artist. 

13. Find, pick, and dissect a flower.

Think and act like a scientist when you choose a flower and carefully take apart its parts. Not sure what every part is? Check out this site to learn more about dissecting a flower.

14. If you have stairs, walk up and count them. Walk down and count by twos. Walk up and count by threes. Continue through tens.

This simple math practice trick gets kids thinking about numbers and exercising!

15. Create and use a secret code.

Make up your own code. Send people messages in code, have them figure it out, and write back!