With the lock down extension, the foremost question for you as a parent (especially of a preschooler) will be ‘How do I keep my child occupied?’ Children are always full of energy and being stuck indoors will be making them feel bored and unhappy. It is important to device novel indoor activities which will keep them interested and occupied, let us take a look at a few such activities.

• Arts and Crafts – In addition to play dough and colour pencils hand over numerous items you have lying around at home like leftover chart paper, paper plates/cups/straws, empty juice cartons, colourful gift wrappers/streamers/ribbons, craft sticks …. the list is endless. Give your child a few ideas to help them start and then sit back, near enough to help when they need it and far enough for them to feel free to use their imagination. You will be amazed at their creativity and how they manage to entertain themselves for hours on end creating various innovative objects and works of art.
• Indoor Treasure Hunt – Harness their sense of adventure and organise little treasure hunting expeditions! You can hide a nice treat or prize somewhere in the house and guide them through the treasure hunting process till they reach their treasure. Organise a few spots around the house and at these different spots add a visual clue which will lead them to the next spot, these visual clues can be actual objects or picture clues. 

For example – At the starting point you can place one sock, which will lead them to their clothes cupboard. In the cupboard attached to the other sock can be a picture of a book shelf, they then head towards the bookshelf where their next clue is hidden and so on. Help them out the first few times till they get the hang of it.

• Fun Learning – The preschool age is when children’s minds are curious and eager to learn new things. So use this curiosity to help develop their physical and mental abilities through a few such fun games. 

• Memory Games – Where you set out a few items on a table and give them a minute to take a good look at them before you cover these items up. They then have to recall the items they saw. 

You can also place a pack of cards face down and take turns at picking two random cards to see if they match. Get your child to remember the four symbols and the exact spots where they are replaced, to enable them to easily pick a matching pair. In addition to improving their memory power, these games help develop their concentration power and attention to detail. 

• Building Block Sets (from numerous companies) – Helps develop their hand-eye coordination and analytical skills (to figure out how to best place one block on another) among other abilities. 
• Jigsaw Puzzles – These are so much fun and also develop your child’s motor skills, reasoning skills and hand-eye coordination. 

• Storytelling – Storytelling opens up a whole new world of imagination and creativity for your child, while also helping them learn new words. You can make it more interesting by getting them actively involved in enacting the story right after the storytelling session.  Any old curtains, bed sheets, tablecloths etc can be used as props. 

• Music and Dance – Get your child moving and expanding all that energy by playing some lively music (not too loud of course).  You can also create a list of the most popular songs for children and teach your child the lyrics of these songs, post which you’ll can have a singing session (you can also make it a karaoke singing session). 

Go ahead and get your child started on these activities which will enable you to spend more quality time with them while keeping them entertained.