What To Do While Staying At Home

We now know that the Stay-at-Home order for Louisiana has been extended to May 15. This means you and your family might be cooped up for a few more days. Everybody is suffering from cabin fever right now. To make home life a little easier for you, we tried to find some activities you can do at home with and without kids:

Homemade Musical Instrument

Staying at homeNeed some more music in your life? How about making a fun instrument that can be played without making too much noise when learning to play them. One of the neatest instruments to make while staying home which has a nice sound is the water glass xylophone. What is even better, you will have all of the tools at home to make the water glass xylophone.

What you will need:

-4 to 6 tall glasses (they should be the same shape and size)

-Pitcher of Water

-Spoon or other object to use as a mallet

Steps to making the perfect water glass xylophone:

  1. Line up the empty glasses. Tap each glass with your spoon and listen to the sounds that each one makes. Do they all sound the same?
  2. Fill the first glass with water almost to the top with your pitcher of water.
  3. Fill the second glass about an inch lower than the first glass.
  4. Repeat step 2 until all glasses are filled with each glass having about 1 inch less of water than the previous one.
  5. Tap each glass with your spoon and listen to the different sounds each one makes.
  6. Now, you can play a song like “Mary Had A Little Lamb” or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”
  7. Note: you may need to fine-tune the amount of water in each glass to get even steps in the sounds to play your song. 

Science Made Fun At Home

If you and your child love science, below you will find a list of science websites. These staying home activities will get you away from the TV and keep you and your child engaged.

Exploratorium – Have you ever gone to this hands-on museum in San Francisco? The Exploratorium is a science museum. The website offers hundreds of videos, apps and activities on just about everything science. Why does your voice sound good in the shower? What changes when you cook meat? Check out the Science Snack section for hands-on projects for explorers and builders.

NASA Kids’ Club – It is time to boldly go and discover science. This club will entertain both kids and adults for hours. Check out the Space Place where kids can play games, do online crafts, and so much more all related to NASA.

Scratch – This website is a great introduction to programming. Kids can learn to create interactive stories, games and animations through coding and then share with friends and family.

Tinkercad – Have you ever wanted to learn how to design in 3D? This program helps to teach 3D design, electronics and coding. Minecraft fans will definitely enjoy the Minecraft modeler. There is something for every future engineer and designer.

SciStarter – Do you need a place to start to get involved in science. This program is not a traditional practice tool. It offers citizen science projects that families can do together. This is one of the great science websites.

PhET – Do you like to investigate? This science websites comes from the University of Colorado Boulder and offers interactive simulations for investigating physics, chemistry, math, earth science, and biology.

Ology – This website is created by the American Museum of Natural History just for students. Find out about fossils, the universe, animals and so much more. Kids of all ages can play games, do activities , collect cards, and even meet scientists.

NASA’s Climate Kids – Do you want answers? This website offers clear answers to questions on global climate change through sections on weather, air, the ocean, freshwater, carbon, energy, plants, animals, and technology. This site includes educational games, activities, crafts, videos and information on green careers. Check out the images and videos.

Virtual Game Night

Did you and your friends used to meet to play card games, charades, monopoly, or other board games? Well, social distancing and game night can come together while staying home. There are plenty of virtual games out there that will keep you and your friends entertained while practicing social distancing. JackBox offers a wide variety of games including personalty test games and word games like Dictionary. The app is available across multiple platforms (desktop Apple-TV, Fire TV, PlayStation and more). The app will cost you $20.99 for a pack of six games, but you and your friends will be entertained in our time of social distancing.

Have you ever played UNO! Well now you can play it online.  The app is available with Google Play or the App Store for free. You can play with a friends just like to used to and keep your social distance. And there are more card games available online. Words with Friends is an online scrabble version that will force you to think while playing with your friends.

Virtual Happy Hour

Staying at homeOnce you send your kids to bed, you are probably ready for some grown up conversations. Start your social distancing party, simply log on to your favorite video chat app such as Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, FaceTime or any others you are familiar with. Send out invitations, enable the camera on your device and you are ready to go. Those will bring your friends back into your home without physically being there. You can ask each other questions, play a drinking game, or even do some arts and crafts together while being apart. Make your favorite drinks and just have one together while social distancing. This is the perfect staying home happy hour.

Choose Alert Transportation

Alert Transportation can get you and your family where you need to go without worrying about the heat or the rain that’s in the forecast almost every day during this time of year. Alert Transportation of New Orleans provides a variety of transportation services from Airport Transportation to Wedding & Prom Transportation. You will travel comfortably with clean, beautifully maintained, late-model vehicles. All our vehicles are air-conditioned and we have sedans, rolls royces, limousines, limo buses, mobility-impaired vans, and party buses.  They are licensed by the City of New Orleans and the Louisiana Public Service Commission. All  drivers are professional and CDL certified. Contact our sales consultants at (504) 362-4145 for more information and to make reservations today. Let the good times roll!