Family Activities for Video Conferencing Platforms

December 15, 2020 CoVid-19 Resources, STEAM, Technology, Uncategorized

Making the decision to cancel in person gatherings is hard. Video calls with a big group can be awkward and not feel like you truly connected with the other people. Planning a game or activity to do together over Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, or whatever your group video call preference may be can make the time spent together virtually more meaningful. When you have a large age range of people that will be participating it can be hard to come up with ideas, especially if this is something you have never done before. Here are some general tips and a bunch of ideas to help you get started planning a family party 2020 style! 

 

General Tips:

  • If there are kids on the call who are in virtual learning environments they are probably REALLY good at using video conferencing – let them teach you! Most kids (especially elementary students) love being the “tech experts” and helping
  • If you have a large group on the call it is helpful to ask everyone to mute themselves when they aren’t talking to cut down on the background noise
  • If doing activity where just one person is talking and everyone else is listening (like family storytime) the meeting host can often spotlight their video for all participants to make them appear larger on the screen. Participants can also do this on their own by “pinning” the video for themselves
  • For some of these activities you might find you want to print things out to mail or porch drop off to people that will be joining the call. Remember that you can print from your personal device to the library printers! We will bring them out to you at either library location. 

 

Activities That Don’t Require Screen Sharing

Conversation Questions

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • None, but you might want to look through a list or two and have 5-10 questions picked out and ready to go. Encourage each person to answer each question!
  • Resources:
  • MyHealth Alberta – List of conversation starters for preschool aged children and up
  • Rockbrook Camp – Fun unique questions for elementary aged children and up
  • Conversation Starters World – Great question ideas for older children through adults

Storytime!

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • A good read aloud book, don’t forget to show the listeners the pictures on each page! Use a book you have at home or check one out from the library.
  • Resources: 

Pictionary

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • Use the digital whiteboard feature of your video conferencing platform or have everyone gather paper/dry erase board and markers before starting.You can assign people what to draw by privately typing it in the chat or just have everyone come up with their own ideas for others to guess.
  • Resources: 
  • Brightful – A list of 371 ideas of what to draw! 
  • skribbl.io – Want to play fully online? Have everyone grab a second device (one for video conferencing and one for this site) and set up a private room!

Scavenger Hunt

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • A list of things for participants to find.
  • Resources:
  • Life Between Weekends – How to run the game and 20 ideas to get you started
  • Destination Imagination – Indoor scavenger hunt ideas that would work great virtually! 

Lego Challenges

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • Each person will need a stash of Legos. If you don’t have any at home did you know you can check them out from the library? 
    • Decide on the challenge(s) you will give the group ahead of time.
    • Use a timer to give everyone a set amount of time to complete the challenge. When the timer goes off, give everyone a chance to show off their creativity.
  • Resources: 

Bake Together 

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • Each person will need a copy of the recipe and the ingredients
  • Resources:
    • Want to print a copy of a recipe to mail/porch drop off for each person but don’t have a printer at home? You can print remotely to the library printers from home and pick them up curbside (Eastgate) or at the drive thru (Main)! 
    • Want to keep it super simple? Try making microwave mug cakes together! There are TONS of mug cake recipes online or check out the ebook 5 Minute Mug Cakes by Jennifer Lee available now on Hoopla!

Bingo

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • Each person playing will need a bingo card and something to mark off what is called. 
    • Whoever is calling will need a way to call the pictures or numbers. If you plan to play traditional bingo you can buy Bingo sets from many different retailers. If playing picture bingo, or prefer not to spend the money, slips of paper in a bowl or hat work great!
  • Resources:

Blank Slate 

  • Supplies Needed: 
    • Blake Slate game! This game can be purchased from many different realtors. It is designed to be played in person, but very easy to adapt to playing virtually. One person will need the game, for the cards and scoreboard, but everyone else can use any dry erase board or paper that they have at home.
  • Resources:

Mad Libs

Activities that Require Screen Sharing (Without Sound)

Zoomed in Images

  • Share your screen and see who can guess what the images are!
  • Resources:
    • Everyday Objects from Bright Side 
    • Close-Up Game from Lenstore
    • Mammal Fur Close Up from How Stuff Works
    • Create your own using your favorite presentation platform (like Powerpoint or Google Slides) using things that are meaningful to your family!

Jeopardy

  • Use a prebuilt game or create your own with Jeopardy Labs
  • Split up into two or more teams and see who will win!

Trivia

  • Use Random Trivia Generator to select a category and get some random trivia questions (and answers)
  • Build your own game to customize it to your family with Kahoot!
    • You will need to create an account and build a game ahead of time. When you are ready to play you will share a room code with all of the players. They will use a separate device from what they are using for the video chat to play.

Digital Escape Room

Activities that Require Screen Sharing (Sound Needed)

For these activities to be successful you will need a strong high speed internet connection to minimize lag. You will also need to make sure to click the checkbox to share your computer’s sound when you begin screen sharing.

Backwards Songs

Learn to Draw

  • Art Hub for Kids has TONS of great videos to follow along with no matter what age you are. Everyone will just need paper and something to draw with! Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist these videos are easy for anyone to follow along with.

Craft Together

  • Everyone will need to gather the supplies they need for whatever craft you pick.
  • Screenshare a how to video like the Rocking Snowman Craft from our YouTube page.
  • Creative Bug has lots of crafting ideas and you can access it for free with your library card! 
  • These can also be done with one person in the family leading a craft they already know how to do without using any screen sharing

Just Dance 

  • This popular video game can be enjoyed by your group by sharing a video from the Just Dance YouTube Channel and challenging everyone to follow along
  • If playing with younger children consider previewing videos to ensure you are comfortable with all the dance moves – they do have playlists curated for kids!

Yoga

  • Cosmic Kids Yoga has a wide variety of videos with lots of different themes and lengths to try out.