Zoom Party: A Parenting Tale, Plus Quarantine Activities for Kids

A Parenting Tale, Plus Quarantine Activities for Kids

Camp Director, Daniel Bieber, clues us in on what kind of zoom parties are happening in his neck of the woods. Plus, he provides resources for activities and projects you and your kids can do during this time of quarantine.

We’re Having a Zoom Party!

“We’re having a zoom party! Zoooom, zoooom!” My three-year-old daughter exclaims these words with zeal from the seat of her new scoot balance bike, perched at the top of our slightly inclined driveway. She then proceeds to push her feet against the pavement, gaining speed until she coasts downhill. Lifting her feet for the ride, wind pushing back the hair peeking out from under her helmet, she smiles wide and says, “Zoooooom!”. 

Ohhh…. I think to myself. She really does just mean plain old zoom. Like what one says riding a pretend motorcycle, or making car noises, or describing something moving quickly. At first, I really didn’t understand that my daughter was zooming like we used to back in the day, going fast and having fun. I assumed she was playing out or imitating all the Zooming her parents are doing these days. 

Whenever something happens a lot in our home, it will find its way into our daughter Odelia’s play. Listening to her talk about zooming while riding her bike, I felt resignation and a loss of hope. This is just our life in these times, I thought to myself, and all of my diligent attempts to keep my daughter’s life tangible and unadulterated by screens are going out the window. Of course, she’s having a ‘Zoom party’, I muttered under my breath, that’s all I do now. 

But then I realized the truth! She was actually zooming. How nice, and what a relief. 

After many speedy loops around our driveway, Odelia bikes up to me, flushed and winded with the kind of satisfying physical exertion that only comes about through self-motivated joyful movement. How great, I think to myself, that my child is truly zooming before she Zooms on a screen like her parents. I want her to inhabit her physical body with mastery and ease first so that when she does in fact Zoom like her parents, she does so from a foundation tethered to physical reality. 

We put her bike away, take off her helmet, and walk inside the house. Odelia soon begins to play with a few of her stuffed animals and a favorite baby doll. I walk past her with a self-satisfied feeling of victory and parental accomplishment and listen in casually to see what kind of grounded, wholesome play she’s up to now. Placing her doll firmly in a chair, a book propped up in front of the doll’s face, I hear Odelia firmly exclaim, “Baby! You have to sit still, we have a Zoom meeting and I don’t want to be late!”

And with that, here are some activities and projects to help your child actually zoom in these times of quarantine:

• Good old-fashion ‘Sledding without Snow’: Check out this for inspiration and this for a step-by-step, safety-conscious guide.
• Build a Cardboard Box Rocket Ship with your kids so they can zoooooom into space from the safety of home! There are so many instructions online, but this can be creatively pulled together with materials you have around the house.
• If you have time, and tools on your hands, try making your own see-saw or teeter-toter. 
• There are also tons of different DIY Swing projects here.
• And just for kicks, check out this cool Branchboard project!

Have fun and stay safe.

-Daniel