20 Activities to do at Home
For various reasons, we tend to be spending a lot more time at home these days. Keeping ourselves occupied during this time can be a challenge. Not to mention, trying to keep healthy and moving as much as we can. And let’s not forget to exercise our brain as well!
We thought we might put together a few types of fun activities you can try on your own, with your family, or with your Support Worker. We would like to share them with you.
Below are 20 (yes, you read that correctly!) activities you can try to keep you occupied during your time at home.
1. Plan the weekly menu and shopping list
Planning your weekly menu and shopping list will enrich your life in more ways than one. Firstly, you could plan new meals and recipes to try out, learn new cuisines, or simply be more organised when it comes to mealtimes, minimising the unnecessary take-away meals. Not to mention that planning your meals will save you money!
2. Clean out and organise your pantry
Time to fish out that bottle of thyme with the expiry date of 2001. Have a good clean out of your pantry, cupboards, fridge, and freezer. It’s amazing how much we tend to forget we have and just let it age. It’s much better to have less in the cupboard so that we can see that bottle of thyme lurking in the back of the cupboard just begging to be used, minimising the accident of someone using something way past its life expectancy.
3. Stretching exercises or learn yoga
Stretching exercises like what you find in yoga practice has so many great benefits for us. It increases your flexibility and your range of motion. It can also improve your performance in physical activities, improves your posture which in turn will prevent back pain. It increases blood flow to your muscles which is a great stress relief and calms the mind.
4. Write a story
Better yet, write YOUR story. Take some time every day to reminisce about your life. Write it down. You never know what you might come up with, or what wrestles of the past you might resolve in spending some time reflecting on YOU.
5. Learn basic first aid
This could save a life! Especially if you could help someone that might be suddenly having a heart attack or a stroke. Timing is everything. It will also increase your confidence knowing that you would know what to do should a situation like this every occur.
6. Learn to play an instrument (like ukulele, or the recorder)
You’ll be smarter. One of the best reasons to learn to play music is to increase your cognitive ability. You could also make new friends, improve your patience and your memory, and it will improve your creativity also.
7. Download Snap Movie and create mini movies
Fancy becoming the next Steven Spielberg? This kind of activity is great to practice your soft skills like communication, creativity, and teamwork. It could also be a very social activity by getting your friends and family involved, maybe even your pets?
8. Create playlists for different activities and moods
It could be fun to be a DJ for a while and create some playlists for certain occasions and moods. Music for bedtime is often a good one to sooth the mind before turning in. Or perhaps a playlist for some meditation or a workout could be different to your usual party playlist.
9. Do some gardening – Grow some food, or plant herbs and pretty flowers
Growing your own food and making a beautiful garden is really very good mental exercise. It keeps the mind sharp as it’s a natural stress reliever. It gives you a great sense of accomplishments, not to mention the dose of Vitamin D that we all could do with on a daily basis.
10. Learn a new language (maybe Auslan – sign language)
Did you know that being bilingual makes you a better multitasker? It’s true! Learning a new language helps with the development of neural pathways and cognitive processes and encourages cultural appreciation and creativity. It also is responsible for improving your memory, and who can’t do with a better memory?
11. Teach your pet a few new tricks – Checkout YouTube videos for this
Did you think teaching your pet some tricks are only good for party tricks? It plays a huge part in teaching your pet overall obedience and manners and is likely to result in better health as many tricks help to build muscle tone and staminal. It will also boost their confidence, and increase their flexibility, balance, and concentration.
12. Rainbow-tise your bookshelf! Sort your books by colour
For those among us who love colour coding, this is for you! Plainly and simply, this is just fun because firstly, you might enjoy organising things, and this gives you something to do. You like the look of it, and it might make it easier for you to find your books if you’re a visual person. Let’s face it, this probably does favour style over substance, but hey! Why not!
13. Sell unwanted stuff on Gumtree – Take photos and create an ad
This is a good way for you to declutter your home and put a little money back into the coffers at the same time. Almost anything can be sold online these days, so why not start a little project at home like re-decorating your bedroom and try to fund it by getting rid of some old stuff! (or see activity 15!)
14. Create a time capsule to be opened in 1 year, 5 years or 10 years
This is a fun activity to do with the kids and is a fun way of letting them (and you) express yourselves. It gives you a chance to put something in there that is important to you right now and reflect back on it in 10 or even 20 years’ time.
15. Collect some free or cheap basic gym equipment, set it up outside, and have a workout
This will break down some of your objections to doing a workout. You don’t need to go anywhere, you’re already at the gym! It saves you time by not needing to travel, and money with no monthly gym costs. And if you like to work out to loud music, or while you watch television, no one is going to judge you in your own home.
16. Do a giant puzzle
Some giant puzzles are just cool. But apart from that, it improves your visual-spatial reasoning, teaches you greater attention to detail, improves your memory and your IQ in just mentioning a few. What we really like about puzzle building, is that the whole family can participate, and fosters collaboration and teamwork within the family unit.
17. Watch live streams of animals at Australia Zoo or do some online, virtual tours of some of the world’s greatest museums and art galleries
Covid has forced some business to innovate to remain in operation throughout the pandemic. Some of the benefits of this innovation, is that now we can tour Australia Zoo, or some of the best museums and art galleries in the world for free!
18. Learn a magic trick
There are some actual benefits to learning a new magic trick, such as developing better fine motor skills or improve your coordination for instance. It can also improve your presentation skills, communication, and public speaking ability. And let’s face it, it inspires curiosity and expand your imagination, as we all would like to know ‘how did you do that!?!’
19. Check in with your mental health – Create a Mental Health Plan, or try meditation
This is great to reduce stress and control anxiety. Medication can really promote emotional health and lengthen your attention span. It can help with fighting addictions, reduce age-related memory loss, enhances your self-awareness to name just a few. Some people even think they become a little nicer after meditating!
20. Learn to make a podcast
Making a podcast is an empowering way for some people to express their ideas and connect with the world in a different medium. You could teach someone a topic, or simply share your experiences and invite other people into your world to share their life and experiences. Give it a go!
If you try any of these activities, be sure to send us some photos! Email us at care@meandyoucarers.com.au to show off your creations or share more ideas for fun activities that you might be doing at home. Or simply give us some ideas of something to add to the list!