Let’s face it – kids aren’t the only ones who get stir crazy during these long days of isolation.
Between parenting and homeschooling and your 9-to-5 job, spare time can be hard to find, but these days spent at home are the perfect time to reconnect with your pre-kids interests or explore something totally new.
Here are a few things to try from the comfort of your home:
Play book bingo
There’s no greater escape than getting lost in a good book. For an interesting way to create a reading list, try playing book bingo. Pick a row from the bingo card below (or four corners, an x, etc.) and see if you can create a list that will earn you that bingo down the road. Or simply start reading and mark the card off with each book you finish. Better yet, challenge a friend to see who can hit a bingo first! Don’t have any interesting books at home? The Indianapolis Public Library may be closed for now, but they still have plenty of resources available online, including e-books and audiobooks.
Take an Ivy League course – for free!
Choose from nearly 500 online classes from Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale. With offerings ranging from Greek Mythology to Positive Psychology, these courses help keep your mind sharp, enhance your interests and keep your mind on something besides the present situation. And the best part? They are all FREE!
Research your family tree
What better time to take a trip back in time to learn about your ancestors and all of the things they went through to get you and your family where you are today. The Indianapolis Public Library has a wealth of genealogy resources available online. This is also a great time to gather up old family photos and keep them on hand for when the library resumes their scan-a-thon events, where the library take photos from the past of families, houses, street scenes, neighborhood events, businesses and more and scans them in for you.
Try out a new podcast
If you’ve never tuned into a podcast, now is a great time to start. Or if you are already a podcast aficionado, now is the perfect time to add to your list of faves. We’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to podcasts in five categories: Parenting, For Kids, True Crime, Speakers/Motivational and Miscellaneous.
Learn a new skill on YouTube
Want to use this time to try learn something new? It’s as simple as visiting YouTube and typing “how to” in the search field to pull up a list of suggested topics, or type in the thing you have been wanting to learn – from writing a novel to playing the piano to fixing a clogged sink – there’s a YouTube video for that!
