Video chat activity ideas with a 1st grader?
January 30, 2021 11:01 AM Subscribe
I have a consistently scheduled weekly hour video chat session (“tutoring” light) with my 6 year old nephew. We talk, I help with any homework I can, and then we fill the rest of the hour with games or activities, but I’m running out of ideas! We both really enjoy our weekly time, and I want to make sure that continues for both of us! What activities could we do together?
I aim for activities that I can ask him questions about— no roblox (we play together on the weekends about once a month), and ideally something where I don’t need him to share his screen or go to a different website.
Here are activities we’ve enjoyed so far:
He usually signs on to google meet from his personal account & can’t always access his school work, and sometimes he signs on from a different chrome book or a parent’s phone and so I can’t count on his hardware being consistent.
Thank you!
I aim for activities that I can ask him questions about— no roblox (we play together on the weekends about once a month), and ideally something where I don’t need him to share his screen or go to a different website.
Here are activities we’ve enjoyed so far:
- He reads a book/chapter/few pages to me, I ask questions
- Guess the number: one person thinks of a number between 0 and (10, 100, 1000) and the other person guesses. The thinker says “your number is higher” or “your number is lower”. I re-state the range each time, and we keep track of how many guesses it takes- he doesn’t always care about scoring low, sometimes this turns into him increasing his guess by 1s and dragging the game out (not fun for either of us? I think he’s frustrated at that point)
- 21: we take turns, you can increase the count by 1,2, or 3, and whoever goes over 21 loses
- Don’t melt the snowman: I draw a snowman & letter blanks & have the alphabet on a jam board, He guesses letters to find the word (each incorrect guess = a piece of snowman “melts”).
- Count Things: I pull up pictures of berries or other small objects (berries are his favorite though) and we do various number- reasoning: how many blueberries, how many raspberries, how can we figure out how many berries total without counting each, etc. This carried us for a few months but I ran out of photos that held interest.
He usually signs on to google meet from his personal account & can’t always access his school work, and sometimes he signs on from a different chrome book or a parent’s phone and so I can’t count on his hardware being consistent.
Thank you!
What's Missing: one person assembles ~5 items, names them/shows them, turns off their camera and removes at least one and scrambles the remainder, then turns the camera back on and the other has to figure out what's missing.
Order Counter: one of you has Lego/similar, the other has little figurines who approach the camera and make requests for assembled items. Can pretend the blocks are ice cream or hamburgers or something like that, or request buildings/vehicles to spec if that's more his thing. "I'd like three scoops of raspberry, one orange, and one green," or "I'd like a purple car with four wheels," etc.
"Find something that..." where you can substitute any learning-objective-type property you'd like, and he fetches an example. "Something with a K sound in it," or "Something that has three parts," etc. This can get kind of cluttery on the kid's end though, so encourage him to also put these things away!
Story dice: you roll, y'all come up with a story together.
You screen-share a video of a picture book being read. If you have a copy, you could do the reading, or you could both just listen. This is better than holding the book up to the camera because it's actually in-focus and legible on his end.
posted by teremala at 11:20 AM on January 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Order Counter: one of you has Lego/similar, the other has little figurines who approach the camera and make requests for assembled items. Can pretend the blocks are ice cream or hamburgers or something like that, or request buildings/vehicles to spec if that's more his thing. "I'd like three scoops of raspberry, one orange, and one green," or "I'd like a purple car with four wheels," etc.
"Find something that..." where you can substitute any learning-objective-type property you'd like, and he fetches an example. "Something with a K sound in it," or "Something that has three parts," etc. This can get kind of cluttery on the kid's end though, so encourage him to also put these things away!
Story dice: you roll, y'all come up with a story together.
You screen-share a video of a picture book being read. If you have a copy, you could do the reading, or you could both just listen. This is better than holding the book up to the camera because it's actually in-focus and legible on his end.
posted by teremala at 11:20 AM on January 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
You can read to him, too!
Depending on his interests and language skills, you could read him a picture book each day, or a chapter of a longer book.
For the pictures, I'm sure there are many fancier ways, but just pointing the camera at the pictures works fine.
Library books are great and cheap, if you don't want to spend money. And many libraries are doing contactless pick-ups right now.
posted by MangoNews at 11:29 AM on January 30, 2021
Depending on his interests and language skills, you could read him a picture book each day, or a chapter of a longer book.
For the pictures, I'm sure there are many fancier ways, but just pointing the camera at the pictures works fine.
Library books are great and cheap, if you don't want to spend money. And many libraries are doing contactless pick-ups right now.
posted by MangoNews at 11:29 AM on January 30, 2021
Rock paper scissors.
Simple pictionary game, using whatever drawing app and screenshare in zoom. You share when you draw, he shares when he draws.
You wouldn't want to do this any time, but watching funny cat videos together could be nice occasionally.
There is a kids game called Headbandz that you could play easily over Zoom if you both had a copy (or that you can fake by making your own cards and just holding them up to your forehead, for a free version).
My son worked out how to play the Pokemon card game over Zoom. Any card game where you each have your own deck would work for this.
You can give him a scavenger hunt to do, and maybe he can give you one.
My sister and I used to play this game where we'd put a screen up between us (or be around a corner from each other) and we each have the same pile of blocks. One person makes something out of the pile, then describes it to the other to try to get the other person to build the same thing. Then you reveal at the end to see how close you got. Also works with Legos.
Oh, building with Legos is something that might be fun to do. If you each had a little pile and just built your own things, you could show them to each other or just talk through what you're doing.
posted by gideonfrog at 11:54 AM on January 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Simple pictionary game, using whatever drawing app and screenshare in zoom. You share when you draw, he shares when he draws.
You wouldn't want to do this any time, but watching funny cat videos together could be nice occasionally.
There is a kids game called Headbandz that you could play easily over Zoom if you both had a copy (or that you can fake by making your own cards and just holding them up to your forehead, for a free version).
My son worked out how to play the Pokemon card game over Zoom. Any card game where you each have your own deck would work for this.
You can give him a scavenger hunt to do, and maybe he can give you one.
My sister and I used to play this game where we'd put a screen up between us (or be around a corner from each other) and we each have the same pile of blocks. One person makes something out of the pile, then describes it to the other to try to get the other person to build the same thing. Then you reveal at the end to see how close you got. Also works with Legos.
Oh, building with Legos is something that might be fun to do. If you each had a little pile and just built your own things, you could show them to each other or just talk through what you're doing.
posted by gideonfrog at 11:54 AM on January 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh, also, if you got each of you a copy of Highlights magazine, you could read through it together, do the puzzles and help each other with the answers, etc.
Also Mad Libs!
Get each of you a different joke book or riddle book and read each other the best ones.
posted by gideonfrog at 11:58 AM on January 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Also Mad Libs!
Get each of you a different joke book or riddle book and read each other the best ones.
posted by gideonfrog at 11:58 AM on January 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
I just realized most of my ideas aren't terribly educational, but a lot of them do involve reading and writing (make him write his Mad Libs answers!), and you could introduce numbers and counting into things like scavenger hunts and block building games pretty easily.
posted by gideonfrog at 12:08 PM on January 30, 2021
posted by gideonfrog at 12:08 PM on January 30, 2021
Years ago on vacation, my teenage daughter introduced our family to "peaks and pits" where each person shares the 3 highlights of the day (peaks) and 3 not so great moments if the day, and why. It can lead to some great insights and conversations. Nowadays my husband and I use this over dinner, usually skipping pits, because peaks are just more fun.
posted by j810c at 12:17 PM on January 30, 2021
posted by j810c at 12:17 PM on January 30, 2021
You could do a real-life One of These Things Is Not Like the Others (gather 4 or 5 items that all have something in common except one, see if the other person can pick the odd one out)
You could take a bunch of post-it notes or little cards with eyes, noses, mouths, ears, tails, horns, belly buttons, etc. Standing in front of a wall or other surface where you can stick or pin things, put up an outline of some head+body shape (an animal or monster). Have him tell you what category he wants you to pick ("another belly button!") and you can place it wherever you want. (You can do this virtually too, of course.)
You could play the game of nim together (if you're not doing it virtually, then maybe use different colors or numbers to identify the different sticks easily so that one person can draw the board IRL and then the person who's playing remotely can call out the color or number of the sticks they want to cross out).
You could do whatever the written version of Exquisite Corpse is called. Or a variant: one of you takes a book the other person doesn't know and reads the first half of a sentence, the other person completes it, and then you compare versions.
Are there any movies you both like? You could practice recreating some dialogues from it and acting them out, maybe with costumes and props.
For something craft-y, you could make masks together (full-face masks, not covid ones!) and try them on. Or give each other challenges for things to draw (a half lion-half seahorse, a shy robot who loves pasta, etc.) or cut out as paper chain cutouts.
If he likes getting dizzy or watching his elders get dizzy, there's always pin the (post-it) tail on the donkey.
posted by trig at 12:21 PM on January 30, 2021
You could take a bunch of post-it notes or little cards with eyes, noses, mouths, ears, tails, horns, belly buttons, etc. Standing in front of a wall or other surface where you can stick or pin things, put up an outline of some head+body shape (an animal or monster). Have him tell you what category he wants you to pick ("another belly button!") and you can place it wherever you want. (You can do this virtually too, of course.)
You could play the game of nim together (if you're not doing it virtually, then maybe use different colors or numbers to identify the different sticks easily so that one person can draw the board IRL and then the person who's playing remotely can call out the color or number of the sticks they want to cross out).
You could do whatever the written version of Exquisite Corpse is called. Or a variant: one of you takes a book the other person doesn't know and reads the first half of a sentence, the other person completes it, and then you compare versions.
Are there any movies you both like? You could practice recreating some dialogues from it and acting them out, maybe with costumes and props.
For something craft-y, you could make masks together (full-face masks, not covid ones!) and try them on. Or give each other challenges for things to draw (a half lion-half seahorse, a shy robot who loves pasta, etc.) or cut out as paper chain cutouts.
If he likes getting dizzy or watching his elders get dizzy, there's always pin the (post-it) tail on the donkey.
posted by trig at 12:21 PM on January 30, 2021
Perfect age for STEM challenges. Have a giant ziploc bag for each of you with items like straws, play-doh, dental floss, rulers, pencils, toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners, index cards, toothpicks, paperclips, masking tape, cardboard pieces, plain paper, glue/ glue sticks, etc). Challenges would be to make a bridge, lady bug house, tower, glasses, etc. You'll find a lot of ideas online for more challenges too! I teach first grade. :)
posted by maya at 12:37 PM on January 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by maya at 12:37 PM on January 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
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posted by daisystomper at 11:17 AM on January 30, 2021