Hello everyone! Welcome back - I want to shout out to our new readers all the way from US, UAE and India - it's time like this in a global crisis we really realise how alike we all are!

This week has been very busy with the increase in online sessions for our children with their school and the continuation with our online lessons for our students. We haven't had a lot of down time as a family so we didn't really do anything as arty as these guys right here; Making heart window decorations (but I have put it on my list for posting in our neighbourhood FB.) Also you gotta love Banksy -always on point 😊

I know that most of us are too busy to do all these fancy things so we've come up with some more easy ideas to have fun at home -ENJOY 🌞

So the restaurant idea was the easiest because all it involved was changing our venue for eating, the plan originally was to eat outside but by the time the food was ready it was dark so we changed to a meal in the living room, we placed cushions around the coffee table and with a ramadan lantern and a couple of candles managed to create a Moroccan theme. We managed to eat our food happily and the hardest part was bringing plates two meters further into the living room. They enjoyed it so much i'm doing it again for them right now so they can eat their lunch while I write!

So what have we done this week?? Well, it all started when my daughter came into the kitchen one morning to tell me the toilet was smoking - and lo and behold he was - cue the prank wars 😷😎

So when you're bored of learning all the dances off of TikTok look for pranks

1. Put a jacket on backwards (hood is on your face) open the fridge door and pretend to be getting something, the other person will come up to the door and take your hood off -Scare them!
2. Boo! is a tradition in this house as i'm sure in everyone's houses - you've just got to creep up to someone and scare them - it continues for a long time though because everyone wants to get their 'revenge!' hence our 10+ year long game.
3. At dinner last night they started a game so M tells A an object and Z can guess it. He always gets it right! the trick is to mention different objects in the room, is it the table? is it the water cooler? is it the kettle? is it my jacket? One of the objects has to be black then the real object will be the one you mention after that!
4. Another fun one is to tell someone they have string in their ear and hold one hand just outside their other ear - tell them to pull the string and you (lightly) slap them!
5. Take a glass of water and ask someone what sound a cat makes? and continue with different animals until you ask them what sound a Whale makes and then spit out the water (more points if you're brave enough to spray on them!)
6. Tell someone if they can copy everything you do; you'll give them some money. Do some random things - pick up a book, write with a pen, then take a gulp of water but keep it in your mouth, they should swallow theirs but you spit it back out into the cup!
7. My favourite was when they pretended to vacuum the 5 yo into the vacuum cleaner because he was being naughty and the 3 yo -his mortal enemy(!) was upset and tried to save him!!

Make sure you talk to the younger ones about expectations and not to get overly offended or maybe even keep your more sensitive kids out of it. Once you've had enough of pranking each other try some of these "Never have I ever" questions for a bit of down time.

Parenting tip of the day: Whilst searching for ideas i came across "Who's most likely to ...." and I'm gonna be honest and say I don't care for that idea too much with the negative connotations but it could be used in a positive way. Children tend to believe what we tell them so if we say they're the most likely to end up in prison, chances are they might well be; conversely if you tell them they're the most likely to become a heart surgeon they might well be.

I've tried to stay offline this week as much as possible apart from their actual lessons but if you're interested in online activities that you can set them up with while you continue working on the side? Go to Quizziz an online quiz website with thousands of ready made quizzes which will ensure your children can stay on top of or even learn some general knowledge whilst having fun. (Watch this video for help getting started.)

Hope some of these ideas inspired you and give you a chance to have some social time with your offspring and inject a bit of fun into the mundane aspects of isolation. Please do let me know how it goes and if you have more ideas do share!

[First published 18 April 2020]