Share your positive isolating schedule ideas...

[Nitpickpicnic]

Right. I’m determined to inject some ‘cup half full’ into this nightmare.

My psychologist mate says it’s important to schedule your days at home, especially with kids. It has the benefits of distracting everyone, not fixating everyone on screens, and possibly coming out of all this calm and even with some new skills.

To start the ball rolling, I’ve thought of a few things (seperate to working online and household jobs). Please add any you can think of, or variations for when we run out of ideas!

-digging out all the old sports equipment from the back of cupboards, sheds, etc. Even the ‘age inappropriate’ stuff from baby or teen years. Bet we can think of something new to do with them. Fresh air at least 40mins a day, rain or shine.

-temporary tattoos/face paints/makeup. We’ll decorate ourselves and invite our kids friends to do the same and parade our efforts on the Zoom app.Also raid the wardrobes for ‘costumes’, put on plays or skits. Video them and send around for a laugh.

-sacrifice any old magazines, books and catalogues around to cut up and make into collages with glue. Everyone will be given a tiny identical pic to hide in theirs for some extra ‘Where’s Wally’ fun. Different theme every week. Maybe we can make jigsaw puzzles with pages too.

-invite my adult friends to teach sessions (via facetime) on their area of expertise. To other adults, and to the kids. I’m offering watercolour painting, using common household stuff & Italian language. Simple stuff, like teaching a tongue twister to practise.

-researching a foodstuff each day. To hopefully make our limited ingredients a little more interesting.

-sending ‘a joke a day’ around our family whatsapp group, with voting for the best one. Maybe also a ‘trivia’ or ‘life hacks’ one too, if that gets stale.

-find family friendly games we can all play online from different locations. I’m gonna need some help with this, I don’t know any!

Obviously this is mainly stuff for when you have kids 3-13, although some adult childfree friends have begged to be involved. Don’t know how we’ll go with it all when we’re actually sick, but a good routine might just work then too. I haven’t figured out my daily schedule, but that’s next.

How are you going to set up your days?

These are fab thanks for sharing.

We are aiming to be up, dressed and breakfasted for nine each morning. Otherwise my children's oils stay in onesies all day. We are going to do Joe wicks' morning pe lesson (on his YouTube Mon -fri at this time) and then do school work until half ten. Stop for a snack and then use the space up to lunch time to be outside in the garden. Kids can play football, I can do some clearing up tasks if the weather permits. Lunch at half twelve then it's reading and maths fact practise for kids. I can check into my online work. We will do an art or craft / science / topic then and after the that they can have free time til teatime.

After tea we have been playing a game or watching a movie.

Im going to start an email round robin "continue the story" with the kids of my mum friends. So we will start a story and email it on, next kid writes a story and emails it on to next person. Next person writes a bit and emails back to us and so on. It'll be a bit of nonsense to look forward to.

We also made a bucket list of stuff to do during this time. We normally do s summer one but thought we could aim to try a coupl of things a week.

It's mostly stuff like watching kne kids favourite movie, finding rocks to paint in the garden, having a mini Olympics in the summer, kids Vs parent computer game match.

Our timetable is this (3yo and 12 week old)

Breakfast and dressed by 9.
Joe wicks PE.
Reading
Out for walk
Video call someone
Lunch
Chill/film
Craft
Video call
Play
Tea
Bed

I’ll be WFH 5 days on and off. The whole office is 50:50 like this so I won’t see half my colleagues until this is over. When I’m at home I’ll dress and “go to work” 9-5.30 as normal.
In my spare time I’m trying not to watch the news too much, a bit depressing and stops me focusing on what’s got to be done now. Before all this I bought a massive complete works of Beethoven box set so I’m getting through that quicker than I thought.

Plant.

Yesterday I planted a tree, and I have a batch of seed packets I picked up from Lidl, veg and flowers.
I have pots and compost, so will be planting- it's a way of having optimism about the future- and great to do with children.

Ours is going to be roughly -

Walk dog
Breakfast
Pe
school work
Lunch
Life skills (sewing, cooking, how to write a letter, how bank accounts work ...)
Walk/bike ride
Free time
Tea
Board games

We've set up email addresses for all the children and are looking at zoom accounts.

We are getting them to write to each other and make up stories together where they each write a line each then forward it on.

We are keeping a journal

As part of their English work we are writing (via email to family)

Daily video call with a relative.

Zoom disco (all the kids in a meeting and play music), playdates etc.

I'm going to do some zoom meetings with the children I work with to do song time and story time and generally just keep in touch.

We are going to spend an hour a day sorting out cupboards and generally organising things.

Putting together a list of books we all want to read

We've bought Disney+ so we can watch some new things.

Going to catch up on some box sets

Learn piano and a language

Not going to have time to find a new job!!!

We don't even have any under 18s but we have put up the swingball and 10am is swingball time.

Going to make a list of things to do. I'm not yet self isolating but prepared for the fact I might potentially have to.

De-clutter ...this could actually fill 14 days
Sit in the garden
Catch up with book reading
Pull out the blank canvases and paint.
Board games

While not isolating I live alone and the Australian government is about to get strict on social distance, not that it's a big issue for me, though I'll miss my book club and the cinema, and the social aspects of work.

Anyhow, lots of gardening, fence painting and indoor paint jobs.

Somewhere in the garage, is a 3-D jigsaw of the Sydney Opera house......

Dd said "where's that marble run I used to play with? " curse you, occasional tidying frenzy So I bloody well ordered a new one. Should arrive today bless you, Amazon delivery drivers.
I love marble run. Handy that dd does too.

Make you own marble run: cereal boxes and bog roll. Lots of online tutorials.

Our schedule, more or less:
8-9 get up
9-10 breakfast, dressed, teeth, bed made
10-11 schoolwork
11-11.30 break: cup of tea and a biscuit
11.30-1 free play (no electrics)
1-2 lunch
2-3 reading, anything.
3-4 maths/schoolwork
4-6 electronics
6+ free time.

He's doing the 30 Day Lego Challenge with two friends via WhatsApp.
He's doing experiments with his microscope - 2 hours happily faffing yesterday on his own (he's 8yo).
We've done some crafting: caterpillar racing by blowing through a straw, climbing bats race, walking feet with no body!
He's writing a daily diary of thoughts, musings, fears, achievements ; anything he wants.
We're WhatsApp videoing my parents a lot. We're in Spain , we've been in lockdown an entire week now. Live in a flat, no garden. Lots of yoga/Pilates but no jumping about type exercise because of neighbours downstairs.

Both of us work from home, me on video calls about 3 hours a day. DS has helped create his own workspace.

We alternate evenings: film night, or boardgames.

You do what you can, you know. There is a great FB page full of ideas somewhere. PM me if you want a link.

You guys are great! I’ve doubled my ideas list by adding from this thread.

Getting the kids zoom accounts and using them for a disco is just the ticket.

Definitely some gardening, and collecting sticks for winter kindling.

YouTube Joe Wicks exercise class will be starting tomorrow. Hope to find a kids yoga one too.

Please add to this thread as new ideas flow. The daily schedules are really useful too. Creating control & some predictability out of chaos.