Social Distancing

Social distancing is a new term to a lot of us and is definitely new to our children. Social distancing is the term used to refer to making a conscious effort to reduce close contact between people and hopefully slow community transmission of the virus. While we can understand this as adults, our little ones at home may have a harder time grasping this new concept. We have compiled a list of ideas and activities below to teach social distancing to our children at home.

• ​Use toys to have your child identify the appropriate amount of space needed for social distancing (6 feet). Tell your child to lay their favorite toys out on the floor and try to make them 6 feet long. Once they finish, use a tape measure to see if they got it right. Let them keep adding/taking away toys until they find the appropriate length! This activity incorporates math skills, problem solving,​ and teaches them how to maintain the appropriate social distance while in public.      
• Now that you have identified the appropriate social distance, use masking tape on your floor to mark this distance (masking tape comes off the floor easily). Have your child practice playing with you or a sibling at this distance. Have them come up with games/activities they could play this far away from someone (e.g. bowling, football, yoga). This will be hard because most activities require us to be close. Choose a game that requires people to be close (e.g. board games) and see if they can come up with a way to play this 6 feet away. This will continue to work on problem solving and coming up with creative ways to play. 
• Our kids will miss their friends and teachers during this time. As you are teaching them about social distancing, continue to encourage them to be social! Schedule a FaceTime play date with a friend. Let them find ways to play and communicate with each other through a video chat. This will prove difficult for a lot of out children but is great practice because as we know, communication breakdowns happen more frequently over the phone or through video chat. Allow your child try to work through fixing a communication breakdown.