Sharla Kostelyk

2020 Pandemic Journal for Kids

The 2020 Pandemic Journal for Kids is a powerful tool in helping your child focus on the positive, express their feelings in a healthy way, shift their thinking to gratitude and hopefulness, and create a memorable time capsule keepsake.

As much as we try to shelter our child from the stress of what’s happening in the world right now, we can’t shield them from it all. Their reality has been altered. School closures, not being able to hug grandparents or visit friends, not going out to the playground, movies, or even the store, and maybe hearing the hushed whispers of adults are just a few of the changes your child may be facing.

Even though we are doing our best as parents to make things as normal as possible for them, chances are, they still carry with them some concern. Worry in a child may look like:

teasing or arguing with siblings more than usual
being irritable
having trouble falling asleep or having nightmares
whining
outbursts or meltdowns
being rigid/inflexible
quick or easy to anger
easily frustrated
big emotions
asking a lot of questions
aggression

What can you do to help your child through this?

Offer hope.

Talk about the future without making promises you can’t keep. The statement “Someday, you’ll be able to tell your kids that you were 9 years old during the 2020 pandemic.” is very powerful. It conveys to them that this will not end the world. That they have a future to look forward to and it also helps them feel like what they are doing now will hold a place in history.

Help them focus on the positive.

There is so much surrounding them that is difficult right now that it can be easy for kids (and adults) to slip into negative thought patterns. “It’s never going to get better.” “I can’t do …”

By helping them reframe what they are going through in more positive language, kids can shift their thinking to gratitude and hopefulness.

Give them an outlet for expressing their feelings.

When kids are able to identify their feelings, they can better manage them. By tracking their emotions, they can also learn to communicate about them. This helps parents and teachers be able to help them through even the most difficult emotions and enables them to equip their child or student with appropriate calm down strategies and tools to better manage those.

What the 2020 Pandemic Journal for Kids includes:

19 printable pages
prompts to help kids document the journey for a time capsule keepsake
pages for them to help identify and process their emotions
new habit tracker
gratitude journal
encouraging colouring pages
ideas to help them focus on the positives
and more

How to Use the Journal:

Supplies needed:

2020 Pandemic Journal for Kids (download yours here)
pen or pencil
markers, crayons, or pencil crayons
scissors
glue stick or glue

Instructions:

Download the pandemic journal.
Print off the pages. You may want to make multiple copies of some of the pages such as the gratitude page and daily journal.
Have your child complete the pages of the journal.
If you want to, you can hole punch the papers to keep them in a binder or duo tang.

How to adapt the Pandemic Journal for Preschoolers:

Even preschoolers can easily use this tool. They can colour the title page and colouring pages, a parent can help them fill in the answers for the “my life during the pandemic page” by interviewing them and recording their answers, the Feelings Log pages can be completed by colouring, cutting, and pasting, and all the other sheets can be completed by drawing rather than writing.

How to adapt the Pandemic Journal for Older Kids and Teens:

This tool can actually serve as an inspiration for your teen or older child to expand on this idea. Perhaps they will want to create a video journal or scrapbook of news articles to accompany their Pandemic Journal. Maybe they will choose to write a report on what they are learning through this experience or about the ways the world came together.

They can use the pages in the journal to write their experiences, thoughts, and emotions as well as to document the experience through their eyes. Depending on the age, maturity, and personality of your teen, they also want to follow reputable news sources to create a timeline or even write a book about the pandemic as seen through their eyes.

To download your free copy of the 2020 Pandemic Journal for Kids, enter your email address in the box below.

You may also be interested in reading:

Your Complete Guide to School at Home

How to Talk to Your Child about the Pandemic

Theme Day Ideas for Family Fun at Home

By Sharla Kostelyk

Is it just me or are the days starting to blend together?! Without school and appointments, it’s hard to know what day of the week it is. There was one day when I didn’t even realize that it was a weekend. These theme day ideas are a great way to break up the monotony and add it some fun.

The idea for this came because my kids were officially on Spring Break but with it snowing and cold outside and no option to go anywhere fun, I brought the fun to them with a family Beach Party. We even Zoomed with our neighbours who had a beach setup happening at their house too. The beach party gave us all something to look forward to as we prepared for it and then gave us memories to look back on. It certainly helped that Tuesday stand out from the other days that week!

Since I know that some of you are also trying to teach your kids at home right now, I’ve also included some learning or art activities into some of the theme day ideas.

One last thing to mention: Busy mamas, this is not meant to give you ONE MORE THING to do. Enlist your kids to do the planning and decorating. Ideally, this should give you less work because you won’t hear the cries of “I’m bored” as often. It can also give your kids something to look forward to when so many of their events are being cancelled. They can look and see that on Friday, it’s the family dance party and get excited for that.

Theme Day Ideas:

Backwards Day:

This is such an easy one to do. You don’t need to buy extra supplies or spend money and you can pull this off at the last minute. Here are just some of the things you can do:

supper for breakfast and breakfast for supper
dessert before the meal
wearing your clothes backwards
have kids learn about palindromes (words, phrases, or sentences that are spelled the same backwards and forwards – find lots here)
count backwards
say the alphabet backwards
sing a song backwards
call everyone by their name spelled backwards
read a book backwards
walk backwards

Beach Party:

Our beach party was so much fun! It was like bringing a bit of tropical vacation right to our living room. Making the decorations and food for it also gave the kids a fun project to work on for days beforehand.

If it’s warm out where you are, you could have this in your backyard instead. Here are some ideas for having your own beach party:

decorate with beach towels, paper fish (we taped ours to blue recycle bags to make it look like water), sand pails and sand toys, tropical confetti, sunglasses
bring in beach chairs or loungers
food ideas: goldfish crackers, cupcakes with blue icing and brown sugar (sand) with a tiny umbrella, umbrellas in drinks, picnic food such as sandwiches, chips, candy fish, clear cups filled with blue jello and a gummy shark “swimming” in it, fruit skewers, sand dollar cookies, watermelon slices
dress in bathing suits, shorts, sundresses, t-shirts, flip-flops
play music like the Beach Boys and dance on the “beach”
read books like The Rainbow Fish
have a Limbo competition
set out a station for fish crafts or put out beach theme colouring pages with markers or crayons
paint seashells
read lounging out on your beach chair or towel
toss around a beach ball

Minute to Win It Theme:

Our family loves, loves Minute to Win It games. They are easy and inexpensive to set up, great for all ages, and best of all, hilarious! Here are some of our best Minute to Win It Games:

Camping at Home:

set out a tent or tents in your living room or backyard (we like to put ours on the trampoline because it raises it up and makes it less cold)
sleep in sleeping bags
make S’mores (if you have a backyard fire pit, use that, if not, you can make s’mores in the microwave)
Ghost Hands are super fun (albeit messy) if you have a fire pit
play Minute to Win It Camping Games
sing campfire songs
paint camping story stones
food ideas: hot dogs, s’mores cookies, chips, walking tacos, mini camping cereals for breakfast
print off this camping printable pack that has camping theme learning activities for kids
star gaze together as you learn about constellations
play card games or board games
go bird watching in the backyard

Drive in Movie in the Living Room:

This is so fun if you have little ones.

Decorate a large box as a car. You’ll need one per child. Let your child use their imaginations. You can use paper plates for wheels and the steering wheel and paint details or add them in Sharpie.
food ideas: popcorn, juice boxes or pop, chips, raw veggies, movie snacks
Set the “cars” up in front of the TV and watch a movie.

Christmas:

Pull out the tree, turn on the outside lights, and start baking! Since it kind of feels like those weeks around Christmas anyway, you might as well embrace it!

set out a holiday puzzle for everyone to work on
wrap things you already own to gift each other
play Christmas music
pull out your Hallmark Christmas movies shirt and start watching those Christmas movies!
sing carols
play Christmas Minute to Win It Games
make Christmas crafts
read Christmas books
play Christmas games
print off Christmas activities for the kids to do
wear your ugly Christmas sweaters
food ideas: Christmas baking, traditional Christmas foods

Family Talent Show:

Hosting a talent night in your home is great because for days before, it gives the kids something to practise. Set the stage in the living room or backyard and cheer on each family member as they perform. Here are some ideas for talents to be performed:

a skit or short play
reciting a memorized monologue or poem
playing a song by tapping on water glasses
playing the spoons
magic tricks
displaying art
singing
lip syncing
dancing
gymnastics
juggling
comedy act
martial arts
playing an instrument
showcasing a new skill such as knitting, whittling, or macrame
hand clapping routine
yo-yo
jump rope routine
hula hoop
baton twirling

Fun Food Ideas:

We’ve been doing these fun food nights mostly for our Survivor nights. I pick a different one each week.

Build your own nachos bar – pie plates for everyone, different kinds of tortilla chips, shredded cheese, and all the toppings: sliced black olives, jalapeños, tomatoes, onions, red peppers, taco meat or shredded chicken, beans, sour cream, salsas, and guacamole
Make your own pita pizzas
Sundae bar
Decorate your own cookies or cupcakes
Appetizer night
Popcorn bar
Pasta bar
Breakfast for supper
Fondu night

Other Fun Theme Day Ideas:

pyjama day
crazy hair day
Rainbow party
formal day
Dr. Seuss party
sensory play all day
celebrity lookalike day
dress up
twins day (dress to match someone else in the house)
Lego building challenge
baking or cake decorating challenge
family dance party
family fun night (hilarious!)
backyard or living room picnic
50s day
60s day
70s day
80s day
90s day
moustache day
backyard Olympics
math game marathon
role reversal day (kids and parents swap clothes and roles)
kitchen restaurant (kids make menus and cook for parents)
Zombie day
un-birthday party (cake, decorations, singing, streamers for no one’s birthday)
fort building competition
kitchen science experiments

These fun family theme day ideas can help you make the most of this time you have together. You can build memories and infuse some laughter into these weeks and focus on building family connection.

You may also be interested in reading:

The Ultimate List of Family Game Night Ideas

The Complete Slime Making Guide

April Emotions Printables for Kids

By Sharla Kostelyk

It is so important, especially during hard times that kids learn to communicate about their feelings. With these April Emotions Printables, you can help your child process and talk about their feelings. This will also help them expand their vocabulary of different emotions which can also help them with empathy.

The printable copywork pages help children associate the emotion word with the corresponding facial expression using adorable little Easter bunnies. They also offer extra printing practise.

Right now, kids may be experiencing a wide range of emotions and they likely vary from day to day or even from hour to hour. Keeping track of these feelings can be a healthy way for them to work through them. When kids can name their emotions, they can better manage them. That’s why this month’s My Feelings Log is particularly important to use.

April Emotions Printables for Kids:

April Copywork Emotions Sentences:

Supplies needed:

April Emotions Printable pages (download them here)
pen or pencil OR
plastic sleeve AND dry erase marker

If you the sheets to be reusable, laminate the pages or slip them in a plastic page protector. Your child can then use a dry erase marker to do the tracing and writing. Or you can have them write directly on the pages with a pen, pencil, marker, or pencil crayons.

Copywork Sentences Instructions for the child:

Read the sentence.
Fill in the outline.
Trace the dotted words.
Write the sentence on the lines provided.
Discuss the various emotions.

These worksheets can be a starting point for a talk about different emotions. You can further expand on this by having the child describe a time when they have felt that emotion. They can also come up with a story describing why the Easter bunny might be experiencing that particular feeling.

April My Feelings Log:

Supplies needed:

printed Feelings Log (download here)
scissors
glue stick
markers, pencil crayons (coloured pencils), or crayons
pen or pencil

My Feelings Log Instructions for the child:

Choose one icon each day to colour, cut, and paste to your log.
At the end of the month, you can look back and see the various emotions you felt.
Discuss your feelings with a parent or trusted adult.

The bunny emotion visuals can help children better identify and work through their own feelings in a way that feels less vulnerable. Once you know HOW they are feeling that day, you can help them dig into WHY they might be feeling that way. Together, you can then work on strategies for managing that emotion.

Simply enter your email in the box below to download the April Emotions Printable Worksheets. You can print them off to use them with your child at home or with your students.

You may also be interested in reading:

Calming Your Child’s Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

Calm Down Breathing for Kids

Calm Down Jar Cards

Baseball Mini Sensory Bottle

By Sharla Kostelyk

Lately, we’ve been changing it up a bit with our sensory bottles by making some of them in tiny test tubes. This Baseball Mini Sensory Bottle is one of those.

You can customize the colours of this baseball sensory bottle to show your support for your favourite team! Whether it’s a professional team, collage, or school team, show your team pride. You could even take it with you to cheer on your team at their games.

Baseball Mini Sensory Bottle:

Supplies needed:

mini bottle (we used these plastic test tube treat containers)
clear dish soap
mini baseball beads
red and white tri beads (or choose a colour for your favourite team)
red glitter (or choose the colours of your favourite team!)
black mini elastics (like the Rainbow Loom ones)
optional: hot glue

Directions:

Pour clear dish soap into a mini bottle until it’s about half full.
Drop in some mini baseball beads.
Add in the beads and glitter. Drop in the small elastics.
If there’s any room left in the bottle, fill the the top with water.
Replace the lid. If using with small children, you can secure the lid with hot glue.

With this or any other sensory play activity, adult supervision is recommended. Even with the lid secured, it can be opened by determined kids or when the glue gets old and the bottle contains small parts that could be a choking hazard.

With its tiny size, this mini calm down bottle can be brought anywhere. You can tuck it into the seat pocket of the vehicle, place it inside your child’s backpack, or you can include it in their calm down kit. This adorable mini bottle incorporates both the visual and tactile sensory systems. Because the glitter and beads stay suspended in the dish soap and fall slowly as it is turned or flipped over, this can also serve as a calm down bottle. Children can watch the glitter slowly fall as they focus on regulating their breathing. Are you looking for more easy sensory play ideas to use with kids? Join us for a five day email series on Sensory Activities and Solutions and get a free sample of our Sensory Play Recipes eBook.

Ways to Spread Kindness During the Pandemic

By Sharla Kostelyk

The world has changed so much over the past few weeks. As this virus spreads, so do fear and uncertainty. Here are some ideas to help you spread kindness to others. Hard times are a wonderful opportunity to allow the best of humanity to shine. Communities are reacting in an attempt to protect their members. Yesterday, our community announced the closure of all schools, community centers, libraries, and large gatherings including church services. It’s a lot to take in.

There is a lot of panic and fear which is understandable. There have been reports of that fear causing toilet paper shortages, bare shelves as people hoard and stockpile, and even some of the worst of humanity emerging like the man buying out all the children’s thermometers in a city to take advantage of parents’ fears and sell them at exorbitant prices.

But there is also the opportunity during something like this for us to model for our kids how to serve others. I have seen beautiful stories. I have heard so many people offering help to others.

I hope that when we look back at these surreal times, we are able to remember the way the world came together to help and neighbours bonded as they cared for each other’s needs.

Ways to Spread Kindness:

Make individually portioned freezer meals for seniors or those who are immunocompromised and shouldn’t go out. Soups, stews, and casseroles are all great ideas. *Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly before cooking and don’t cook for others if you believe you may have been exposed to the virus.
Deliver groceries, medicine, and other necessities to seniors. Leave items on doorsteps for safety.
Call those you know who are in isolation just to say hello and encourage them. Remember those who are extraverts or prone to depression as this time may be particularly hard on them.
Shovel a neighbour’s driveway or mow their lawn.
Offer child care for essential workers such as nurses, doctors, police officers, firefighters or single parents.
Share or trade puzzles, board games, or books with another family. (be sure to wipe down anything before it comes into your house)
Host virtual playdates and activities over Skype or other online platforms. You can do a simple activity together using common household items that everyone has on hand. This helps with boredom and isolation.
Deliver pet food or offer dog walking to those on isolation with pets.
Donate to the local food bank.
Listen.
Join an online community support group (there are many local ones on Facebook) to find the needs in your area.
Be kind.

You can print off your own copy of the Ways to Spread Kindness poster to help remind you and your kids of ways to make the best of this time.

You may also be interested in reading:

How to Talk to Kids About the Pandemic

Your Complete Guide to School at Home

Easy Indoor Sensory Activities at Home

School at Home Sample Schedules

Life Cycle of a Chicken Sensory Bin

By Sharla Kostelyk

Hands-on learning is the best kind of learning. Let kids explore farm animal science in this Life Cycle of a Chicken Sensory Bin. This lesson can be used with preschoolers and students in early elementary.

You can set up this sensory bin as part of a Farm unit. It’s a cute way to introduce the farm unit or set up a sensory station in your home or classroom. This is also a super cute activity to do in the springtime.

Life Cycle of a Chicken Sensory Bin:

Supplies needed:

plastic bin
popcorn seeds
dry noodles (like the kind you use in chicken noodle soup ironically!)*
life cycle of a chicken pack
optional: scoops or spoons

Note: *I found my dry noodles at the bulk foods store.

Directions:

Place the popcorn kernels and dry noodles in a plastic bin.
Add the figures from the life cycle of a chicken pack.
Invite your child to explore and play.

Ways to expand this activity:

Set out books about farm animals and/or chickens nearby to expand on this activity.
Talk about the sounds chickens make and have your child imitate the noise.
Discuss what kinds of things we use eggs for.
Make a recipe that uses eggs together.
Learn more about chickens and raising chickens using the resources listed below.
Visit a local farm.
Raise chicks.