Welcome to my new Simplified Series.

Be Simply Free exists to empower women to live a life where their homes and minds are decluttered so they can be simply free. While I love sharing my ideas, I thought it would be lovely to also share simplifying strategies from guest bloggers too.

Our first guest is Sarah Stone, who shares her expat travel journeys on The Expat Loop.

COVID the dreaded word we have all learned over the past few months. It has affected everything we do, our day to day lives, our jobs, our social life, our children.

So imagine facing COVID with children at home. Not just children but babies and toddlers. The thought is mind-blowing, overwhelming, and fear sets in. So you ask yourself what do you do with kids in lockdown or isolation. Do you home school, distance learning, fun activities, walks, outside play? Well, that is all ok for maybe a week or two but try entertaining kids for an extended period of time. What then?

So here are 10 top tips on how to entertain kids during COVID.

1. Take up a hobby - try something new, learn how to ride a bike, use a yo-yo, learn ballet, or play an instrument
2. Plan a campout - camp out in your lounge room, in a tent in your backyard, or even in a cubby house. Make a night of it, light a fire, toast marshmallows, cook dinner over an open flame, or tell ghost stories
3. Set a daily art and craft activity - rainbow making, kinetic sand, puppets, necklace, Christmas cards
4. Set an amount of time for screen time - an educational show, playgroup on line, PE with Joe, or online reading time with a local library
5. Cooking time - each day pick a new recipe to make to eat as a snack or dinner. There are a lot of recipes, cooking shows, online tutorials to pick from
6. Movie night - make one night a week a special night, movie night, pizza night, or bbq night. Pick a family movie, make tickets, cook popcorn, and enjoy the night
7. Walk - make the time each day to take a walk. Make it more interesting by doing a nature treasure hunt. Create cards with items such as a tree, flower, rock, bird, pinecone, and collect items along the way and tick the items off. The aim is for all items on the card to be collected.
8. Outside activities - depending on what space you have, get your kids outside. Create an obstacle course, a cubby house, draw with chalk, or enjoy water play
9. Teaching time - put topics in a bowl and pick a topic each day. Could be countries, food, animal, or anything. Select one from the bowl and talk about the topic. Create activities such as drawing an animal, collecting all items that have animals on it, or watch a tv show about the topic.
10. Get high tech - COVID has allowed more activities to become online. So you have the opportunity to watch animals at the zoo, enjoy a roller coaster at a theme park, watch a Broadway musical in NYC, or a sports game.

In times like this, it is time to get creative. Time to enjoy with your family and time to embrace the present and enjoy the journey. So while COVID is around, and isn’t going anywhere any time soon, I will give you one final tip:

Embrace the present, enjoy the future but most of all take on the journey.

About Sarah

My name is Sarah Stone. I am a mother, wife, blogger, and love working in marketing. I have two children Grace (5) and William (4) and married to my husband Michael. We have spent the last 10 years abroad in the USA and Italy until last year when we returned to Adelaide, Australia. I have a passion for good food and wine, travel, Broadway, writing, real estate, and cooking.

Follow Sarah's Expat journey at The Expat Loop.

Other articles that might interest you:

• Who is Bridget?- Learn more about my story of stress, too much stuff and exhaustion and how it led me to become and professional organiser and declutter coach.  
• Use your excess clutter to be prepared for the unexpected - Got doubles of things. Read how you can use this excess clutter to save you money and time!
• Why I get up at 4.44 am - It's not for everyone but this article shows how I went from being a night owl to looking forward to getting up before the sun!
• How I get up at 4.44 am - This article shows how I get up without walking the whole family!

If any of these articles have sparked an interest in decluttering, visit here to learn more about my 1:1 declutter coaching services, current workshops and online declutter courses. As author Karen Lamb says, "A year from now you may wish you had started [your decluttering journey] today".