Keep the kids (and the adults) busy while social distancing at home
by Donica Kaneshiro | April 6, 2020
By now, most of us have run through our list of stay-at-home projects for ourselves and our kids. Even with distance learning, life for my children has begun to feel like one loooong weekend.
Fortunately there are a lot of creative people out there, who are taking to the internet to share their skills. And there are plenty of businesses who are seeing this as an opportunity to share some good will.
Our state public library digital collection is more popular than ever with waits mounting for online resources. Last week, the nonprofit Internet Archive founded the National Emergency Library, which suspended the waitlist for the 1.4 million titles in its digital lending collection through at least June 30 so that teachers can ensure students have access to assigned texts.
Amazon’s Audible service has a dozens of free audiobooks for kids of all ages, from little listener faves like “Winnie-the-Pooh” and “The Wheels on the Bus” to teen reads “Talon” and “Hollow City” plus loads of literary classics so your kids can listen to their homework.
This week, Dolly Parton started her “Goodnight with Dolly” series on YouTube, adding to the long line of celebrities, including Jennifer Garner, Reese Witherspoon, and Chris Evans (all part of the fundraising Save With Stories project) to read children’s books online. I can manage to read my kids a bedtime story, but there’s nothing that prevents you from streaming it at 2 p.m. Hey, it’s bedtime somewhere, right?
If you feel the need for an excursion while obeying the stay-at-home order, “Travel + Leisure” magazine posted a list of museums offering virtual tours. Access the collections of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul and more.
There are loads of YouTube videos showing you how to draw everything from cute food to Baby Yoda. Acclaimed children’s author Mo Willems of “Elephant and Piggie” fame is hosting “Lunch Doodles” episodes through The Kennedy Center’s YouTube channel. In each episode, he teaches kids how to draw one of his popular characters and talks a little bit about the process of getting a book from concept to bookstore.
Skipping your favorite class at the gym may have left you feeling blah but the YMCA has created a series of classes on demand with the Virtual Y. Yoga for kids and adults, bootcamp, barre, weightlifting and tai chi are sure to get your heart pumping and bring your stress levels down.
Or if you prefer watching others work up a sweat, MLB.tv is streaming games from 2018 and 2019 for free. All you need to do is create an account and rip open your peanuts and Cracker Jacks.
And when things get stressful, who couldn’t use a little downtime with a furry or feathered friend. The San Diego Zoo and many others have turned live-streaming cameras on their animal exhibits so you can check in with your faves, whether they be the polar bears or the burrowing owls.
Of course, all these resources require wi-fi and lots of it. Both Spectrum Hawaii and Hawaiian Telcom have committed to provide free internet access for two months for households with students in kindergarten through college. All you have to do is call them. Meanwhile T-Mobile and Sprint have given customers unlimited data to stay connected for 60 days, while Verizon is adding 15 GB of data to its customers’ plans.
So stay connected, stay entertained. Stay home and stay safe!
Donica Kaneshiro is a communications consultant at Hawaiian Electric Company.
