I posted a small collection of indoor activities for kids late last week, with a fairly wide variety of creative commitment and gear required.  This week I thought I would post another easy craft to do with kids if you too are spending more time than usual at home these days due to the COVI-19 outbreak.  Most of you know me as a photographer, but I actually hold a bachelor’s degree in studio art with a variety of different focuses.  One of the many things we did in art school was work with common materials in an epic way.  My very first project in 3D design was to build a tower using only a phone book at masking tape.  It was a fun project and really made you think about material and how to use it effectively.  We (thankfully) haven’t received a phone-book in awhile….and I’m running low on masking tape.  However, I did have a mess of construction paper laying around.

One of the biggest challenges at our house at the moment, is that “Dada” is now working from home AND school is all distance/online learning, which means everyone is home all day, everyday.  Having my husband working from home is SO tempting to our little, as she’d LOVE so spend all of her time with him….which is certainly not helping with productivity.  Coming up with creative indoor projects for her & me to do together has however, made this work a little better for her.

For this particular indoor project, I dug deep on my use of ordinary materials from 3D design, with a twist of “old school” and made a paper chain out of strips of paper to “decorate the house for dinner.”  It was to be a surprise when my husband finished working for the day, which helped keep our little from trying to spend all of her time with him.  She really does love a “secret project.”  So, with Dada tucked into his office getting a few things done, we started working on our decorations.

She cut some of the paper strips by hand, which is a tedious job, although definitely helps make the project take a little longer, if that is something that might help at your house.

The entire project took a few hours, as we really wanted to make the volume of paper chains pretty epic.

We did eventually give up on cutting the paper strips by hand and went down to my studio to use the paper cutter instead.  I fully recognize most people don’t happen to have an industrial paper cutter at home and cutting strips by hand does work just fine; however, if you do, it’s a great opportunity to talk about mechanical advantage and get out of all that paper cutting by hand.

One of the things that has been most popular at our house during this time of staying at home has been getting to break the rules.  Standing on the table is definitely against house rules, but was also the easiest way to help hook up some of the paper chains in our dining room. As far as indoor activities goes this was a big deal for her.

….and below is what the final product looked like.  Also showing our flower arrangement from our At Home Flower Arranging Workshop with Helen Olivia Flowers in Del Rey.

Dinner wasn’t nearly as exciting as the decorations.  But the little did help me make it and it was spaghetti.

I hope you too are finding fun and creative ways to enjoy this time home with your family.