Schedule of Online Streaming Classes + Activities and Resources for Toddlers, Preschoolers and Grade Schoolers

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We’re doing our best to keep busy at home while social distancing is recommended. Below is my approach for keeping my kids engaged, active and enriched during these surreal times (for reference, my kids are now five and almost two). One of my followers shared a calendar view of available live stream classes and activities + lots of other online resources, which I linked below.

Miriam Y Cohen kid quarantine.jpg

Structure and Routine

I’ve seen others’ color-coded fancy schedules, and they’re overly ambitious for me. I’m keeping it simple and doable — we are structuring our days with a morning meeting, outdoor activities twice a day and an anchor fun activity with an educational component (e.g., baking or gardening). Beyond that, I have a list of activities to round out the day.

I will aim to include reading, writing and art all days.

I’ve been sharing our daily activities on Instagram stories (check them out here under “play@home” story highlights").

Interestingly, my five year old is loving sitting down with me each afternoon to plan the next day. It’s a great activity for him — makes him feel in control, and builds his executive function / planning / scheduling skills, and there is a reading and writing component to it too!

My advice is to keep your schedule somewhat flexible at first and see how things play out. As long as your kids are engaged and exposed to new things, they will be learning.

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Morning Meeting

Our morning meeting includes singing the days of the week and months of the year, having my five year old circle the day and month on a reusable chart that I made (I wrote out the days and months and slipped them into a plastic presentation sleeve, which my kids can write on with a dry erase marker (Crayola makes washable dry erase markers, regular washable markers work just not as well) and then erase with a damp cloth or baby wipe). My five year old also then fills out the day of the week and date on another sheet.

Our meeting includes a letter, word, sound, shape, color and / or food of the day. My son wanted to add a question to each day (e.g., polling each family member about whether they like the color of the day).

My son is in kindergarten, so I bought the Brainquest Kindergarten workbook and am matching up the lessons with our day (e.g., he will do the “A” worksheets when we have “A” as the letter of the day).

My daughter is almost two and doesn’t seem to need as much structure. She flourishes as long as we sing and dance a lot and read plenty of books.

We will incorporate the letter and other things of the day throughout the day — e.g., a scavenger hunt for red items, or baking an apple cake on a day that A is the word of the day or apple is the food of the day (and focus on the phonetics of that word).

Online activities

I’m open to doing one online music, movement or other online class per day. I started compiling online classes and resources but Alysa Axelband Hassid DM’d me on Instagram me with her more robust list.

So far, we’ve been focusing on class leaders that we already know and love from Union Square Play. I’m excited to round out our days and keep things interesting by incorporating other enrichment classes and activities.

Two standout online options that are well established are Go Noodle (available on YouTube or the GoNoodle site), and Cosmic Kids Yoga.

We’re also big fans of Osmo. We have a bunch of the add ons, but I’m linking our favorites below.

Calendar view of livestream classes

More activities and ideas

Check out

Supplies

I have a great list of family essentials to have on hand during these uncertain times (check it out here).

Here are supplies that I own, stocked up on specifically to keep my kids engaged and entertained or am planning to purchase.