One extremely creative mom who follows along with us on Instagram had the brilliant idea to assign a theme to her daily activities with the kids. How fun is that? We LOVED the idea so much that we decided to create some themed “lesson plans”. We’ll be adding additional themes over the coming weeks, so follow along to make these long days a bit more exciting!

And don’t forget to check out our “stay busy while school is closed” post for a ton of other fun ways to stay busy from home!

If your little one likes today’s theme, they might also enjoy Ocean Day or Transportation Day!

Get out your jersey, dust off your uniform, or break out your favorite team hat because our first theme is SPORTS! We’ve rounded up some sports-themed activities that are both fun and (hopefully) educational. Feel free to add other “subjects” and lessons that you come up with throughout the day. Ie: finding and matching the clean socks from the laundry just became a game of basketball. Fold them together and throw them into the basket (aka the designated sock drawer)!

Activities

We had such a fun time executing these 5 activities! Some incorporate color, number, and letter recognition. Others involve math practice. And all can be easily tailored to meet your individual child’s abilities!

Bean Bag Toss

1. Tape 4+ pieces of construction paper to the ground. Painters or masking tape work best. Line each side of the paper with tape so it’s securely attached to the floor.
2. Write a letter and number on each piece of paper. If you child is younger, leave them blank. If your child is older, add words.
3. Use clues to designate a piece of paper for your child to throw a bean bag* onto. Examples: “toss the bag onto letter A”, “toss the bag onto the yellow piece of paper”, “toss the bag onto the piece of paper that has five minus two”…).
4. If you want to keep score, give a point for every bag that makes it onto the correct piece of paper.
5. Have your kiddo tally up the points!

*If you don’t have bean a bag, you can do what we did for this activity! Fill a sock with rice or (dried) beans and tie it shut.

Skee Ball

1. Line up three to five bowls, baskets, bins, or buckets of any shape or size.
2. Assign points for each bowl (for us, blue=1, green=2, yellow=3, purple= 4).
3. Draw a line (it can be invisible!) to stand behind.
4. Use a ball, pom pom, or other object and toss it into the bowls.
5. If you make the object into the bowl, you get that number of points.
6. Have your kiddo tally up the points!

Ice Skating

1. Get two dryer sheets. You now have a pair of ice skates!
2. Skate around the kitchen table, coffee table, or couch.
3. Time how long it takes to go around three times.
4. The fastest skater gets 5 points!

Bowling

1. Make a pyramid out of plastic cups.
2. Roll a ball down the (pretend) alley and try to knock them over.
3. For every cup that falls over, you get a point!

Tennis

1. Glue a popsicle stick or straw to two paper plates.
2. Blow up a balloon.
3. Use a piece of painters or masking tape to create a “net”.
4. Hit the balloon back and forth over the net.
5. Whoever lets the balloon drop gets 0 points, the other player gets 1 point.
6. Play until you have 15 points total.

Reading

Our choice for a sports-themed book is Catching the Moon: The Story of a Young Girl’s Baseball Dream. Watch Kevin Costner read this story here! Some additional children’s books that involve sports are below. Don’t forget that most libraries have a catalog of e-books that you can access from home!

• Curious George Plays Soccer
• Froggy Plays T-Ball
• Nancy Clancy Soccer Mania
• Pete the Cat: Play Ball
• Teach Your Giraffe to Ski
• Peppa Pig Goes Swimming
• search for a book on your own bookshelf that has a sport in it!

Science

• Use one of these recipes to make a bouncy ball!
• Do all balls float? Fill a bowl or tub with water to find out!
• Does the temperature of a ball change how high it bounces? Warm one up with a blow dryer and send it bouncing…then cool it down in the freezer and test out the difference!

Physical Education

• RUN! Send the kids outside to run around. Time how long it takes for them to run from point A to point B. How long does it take to skip or hop the same distance? Have them guess which will take the longest!
• Create an obstacle course with sticks (line them up like hurdles & jump over them), rocks (run in circles around each one 3 times), and anything else that you can find around the yard. Perhaps create “lily pads” with leaves and hop from one to the next?! Time it for extra fun!
• Get your heart rate up by following along with GoNoodle & the Harlem Globetrotters in this video!
• Wind down and stretch it out with one of the hundreds (or thousands?) of Cosmic Kids Yoga videos.

Art

• Follow along with Art for Kids Hub and make a sports-themed picture. Draw a hockey player, a basketball, a soccer player, or even a trophy!
• The internet is full of sports crafts! Check out some of our favorites: cereal box soccer, paper plate sports craft, and 25 sports themed crafts.

Writing

Older kids are encouraged to write about their favorite sport or what they loved most about the sports-themed activities they did today. You can help younger kids practice writing out words like: ball, hat, and bat!

Movie Time

It’s quiet time…aka TV time! Put on your favorite show or movie about sports. We are going to tune into one of the below:

• The Mighty Ducks
• Air Bud
• The Sandlot
• The Karate Kid
• Little Giants
• Rookie of the Year
• Space Jam

Award Ceremony

Were you keeping track of who “won” various sports throughout the day? (FYI: we support adding or removing points for good and bad behavior). Announce a winner (or everyone is a winner if they were well behaved…) and host an award ceremony at dinnertime or before bed!