For many families preparing to spend some quality time indoors this school holidays, the prospect of keeping everyone entertained for hours, days and weeks on end can be pretty daunting. And whilst we’d usually create a list of community events and activities to get involved in on the holidays, this time round it’s a little different!

Here are some novel ideas to keep busy indoors throughout the school holidays, as recommended by the Little Dreamers team.

1. Create a rainy-day kit

 Your rainy-day kit is a collection of activities to revisit each time you’re feeling bored or restless. Fun additions include:

• A colouring book and some pens (we hear this one is pretty good!)
• Paint by numbers
• Knitting needles and wool
• Board games
• Puzzles
• Canvas, paintbrushes and paints
• Origami paper
• A nice notebook (start a diary, or a novel)
• Playdoh
• Movies and books

2. Listen to a podcast or read a book

Podcasts and books are both great ways to kill time while not killing brain cells! Here are our team’s top recommendations:

Books:

• The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
• Tomorrow When The War Began series, by John Marsden
• Looking For Alibrandi, by Melina Marchetta
• The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
• The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion
• Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes
• The Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins
• Wonder, by R.J. Palacio
• Divergent series, by Veronica Roth

Podcasts:

• How I Built This
• Deliciously Ella Podcast
• Freakonomics Radio
• Stuff You Should Know
• Decoder Ring
• Serial
• Radiolab
• TED Talks Daily
• And anything true crime!

Plus, take a look at this handy guide by the NY Times on the best podcasts for young kids.

3. Catch up on TV shows

If in doubt, here’s a start on some incredibly binge-worthy TV series and movies we’re loving:

• The Great British Bake-Off
• Atypical
• The Good Place
• Friends
• That 70s Show
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Wonder
• Love, Simon
• Blended
• Crazy Rich Asians
• Clueless
• The Fundamentals of Caring

4. Write a schedule

It’s a good idea to maintain a degree of structure in your day and hold yourself accountable for the tasks you’d like to complete. Incorporate a variety of activities that will stimulate and challenge you in different ways – work on learning a new skill, being active, catching up on some reading and of course, down time to switch your brain off and relax.

Here’s a great example we found online (left).

5. Practice yoga and mindfulness 

Now’s a great time to put your body and mind to the test and learn a new skill, such as yoga. For yoga, we recommend starting with something like Yoga for Beginners or Daily Yoga. If you’re more interested in stimulating your brain through mindfulness and meditation, the One Giant Mind app or Smiling Mind come highly recommended by our team.

6. Have a spa day 

Tune into relaxing music, light a few candles, buy or hand-make face masks and bath bombs, and give yourself a manicure or pedicure. A spa day is a great excuse to wear your dressing gown and slippers all day, and with beauty salons the latest places to close with the new social distancing restrictions, we’re 100% here for it.

7. Organise your photos

Time to get organised. Immortalise your favourite memories by compiling them in a scrapbook, organising them into folders on your computer, or ordering your own a photo book online!

8. Create a playlist

Jump onto Spotify and put your musical genius to the test. Now that you’ve got some time up your sleeve, you can create a household playlist for every mood and time of day – morning motivation, chill out tunes, cleaning classics, evening wind-down, and more!

Or simply read the memes about how 2020 was meant to be the best year of our lives.