Social distancing doesn’t have to mean a boring meet-up! Try these fun ideas next time you spend time with your Little over the phone or virtually.
Play “Would you rather?”
This is a simple phone-based game that requires no set-up. Simply take turns
thinking of would-you-rather questions and answering them. Would you rather become five years older or two years younger?
Use this link to find
many example questions: https://conversationstartersworld.com/would-you-rather-questions-for-kids/
Play 21 questions
One person chooses a person, character, or object and the other tries to guess
who or what it is by asking yes or no questions until he arrives at the answer.
Technically the guesser is only allowed to ask 21 questions, but you can throw
that rule out the window and just play for fun.
Play charades
All that this requires is a webcam. One of you must choose a movie (or book or
song or anything you like) and act out its title silently so that the other
player can correctly guess what you’ve chosen.
Play Battleship &
grid games
Battleship wins major long-distance points for being one of the few games you
can play together with the physical game. You’ll need to buy one copy and mail
half of the components to your Little, so that each of you has a copy of the
board, colored pegs, and ships. Then you’ll be able to play over the phone or
on Skype. Alternatively, you can play with nothing but a piece of graph paper
and a pencil. Chess, checkers, Connect Four, Quoridor, and Stratego also translate
easily to graph paper.
Have list competitions
The website sporcle.com is great for having friendly trivia competitions. The many list-quizzes on the site focus on certain topics (for example, the countries of Europe, the original Pokémon, famous logos) and the goal is to list as many items within that category as possible within the given time limit. You could also do this as a pen-and-paper activity if you think of your own topics and use a timer.
Play storytelling games
Ah, the ancient art of storytelling. It may feel ridiculous to sit down and
tell each other stories, but it’s tons of fun to weave stories together under
the guise of playing a game. Some such games, like Sherlock Holmes Consulting
Detective, are book-based (though expensive), and guide you through a fictional
world, allowing you to direct the story based on your decisions. Other games,
like the popular card game Once Upon A Time, require you to come up with the
story, but gives you boundaries and inspiration in the form of keywords based
around a theme. The game is affordable so you can purchase a copy for each of
you and play via Skype.
Play board games online
Listing all the sites you can use to play board games would probably require another book. En.boardgamearena.comis one that has a bunch of excellent and popular games (popular in the gaming world, at least) like Hive, Coloretto, Saboteur, Jaipur, Seasons, and many more, and they are free to play. If you need more ideas, check out here for a nearly all-inclusive list of free online versions of board games.
Draw each other
Your artistic skills are irrelevant to how much you will enjoy drawing your
Little and vice versa. Take turns posing via webcam and drawing one another.
Aim to draw a realistic portrait and just see how you do… if you’re not
practiced in art you’ll probably end up with something really goofy looking
that somewhat resembles your Little and (s)he’ll draw a lopsided,
squished-looking version of you. Then you can just enjoy making fun of each
other. With practice, though, you can get pretty good pretty quickly.
Learn a language
If you’re both sitting at the computer, you might open a language learning
program and go through it together, lesson by lesson.
Hold a fitness competition
The site Fitocracy.com is an excellent tool for
holding fitness competitions – with the ability to easily track every exercise
you complete and give you an appropriate number of points per exercise, it
makes working out feel like a real-life video game. You gain levels each time
you earn a certain number of points and complete challenges, so it’s very
simple to compete with your Little, though the site has a special challenge
feature as well.
Close Up
This activity works best for matches who have texting and media capabilities. Take really close up pictures of items you have around you. Try to make sure the object is still distinguishable from just a blob of color. Take turns sending the photos to one another and seeing if either of you can guess what the object really is.
Poetry Readings
If you are both artistically inclined, have a mini poetry reading. Share your library of poems and read them to one another.
Impersonations Would either of you happen to be a comedian? Try some silly impersonations. You might be surprised at how good (or how awful) you both are.
Impersonate someone from a movie you’re sure your Little has seen and have them try to guess what movie the character is from, or who the character is –without any hints!
Crossword Puzzle Swap/Race
Print out a crossword puzzle from online or purchase a puzzle book from a local store. It can be the exact same puzzle, or two different puzzles that have the same amount of words to be found.
Race and see who can complete the puzzle first. Compile photo evidence and text it to one another.
Conversation Cubes
When conversation becomes slow, whip out your trustee conversation cubes! These can be homemade. You can make as many as you want.
Place random conversation topics on each side, and toss them around to see what your topic for the day is. Try movies, TV shows, previous conversations, music, something random, etc.
Thanks to:
http://www.ldrmagazine.com
https://www.escapenormal.com