How to Easily Entertain Your Kiddos at Home
As you already know, the pandemic changed our Momma lives in ways we never imagined. Overnight you had to become a school-teaching, at-home-working, toilet-paper-scouring, source-of-all-entertainment-Momma! Talk about a whole new level of Momma-hood.
The pandemic brought many new roles to us as mothers, but if you are looking for some help on the “source of all entertainment” aspect of your new roles I discovered the perfect solution for you! It’s safe, it can be completed at home with very little setup required from you, the kids love it, it’s a solid source of entertainment, & it gets your kids away from the screens! They’ll be using critical thinking as well as creative problem-solving skills while having fun. Could it get any better than that??
Whether you’re trying to keep your kids away from crowds or simply looking for some at-home entertainment to keep them busy, I have found the perfect solution that I want to share with you! In this blog post, I’ll be sharing
My pandemic experience
Pinterest fails
Building our own affordable, reliable solution
The solution
My nephews’ feedback
Brain benefits
What’s required of you
So, if you are ready to join me as being the best ”home entertaining” Momma on the block with minimal effort on your end, read on!
My Pandemic Experience
The pandemic quickly changed life for all of us. I was working from home with a one-year-old. My sister was working in a position that was considered essential & couldn’t be completed remotely, so my two nephews were spending a substantial amount of time with me. I was quickly promoted from being a Momma of a single one-year-old wrangling three darling, yet boys.
It was a blessing & a curse. I loved all the time I was able to spend with these three boys. I loved that my son was getting to spend so much time with his cousins. I absolutely loved feeling like I was able to contribute to keeping these three boys safe.
I did NOT love trying to work full time remotely while trying to provide these three boys with the attention they needed. I did NOT love pretending to be an elementary school teacher to kids trying to learn from tablets. I did NOT love trying to figure out how to keep the kids entertained at home.
Pinterest Fails - at home fun and education
Let me quickly share my experience with Pinterest FAILS. There are so many cute ways to entertain your kids on Pinterest. I have boards with hundreds of ideas of what seems like the cutest, educational, easy-peasy home entertainment ideas for the kids. Well, they might be cute & educational, but rarely are they easy peasy.
So many times I would take action on a Pinterest inspiration. I would get the supplies gathered up, spend an hour or more prepping all of the materials to get the ______ (craft, science experiment, building project, you fill in the blank) ready for the boys. Then, I would round up my 3 munchkins and the end result always looked like one of the following outcomes:
It was a FABULOUS time, for 5 minutes
My boys decided they weren’t into crafts that day and didn’t end up doing any of it
They muddled through the project because I was strongly encouraging them to do so, but they really weren’t loving it
On the rare occasion, everything went perfect & they were entertained & happy for a solid hour
I was quickly becoming exhausted with trying to be a Pinterest Momma only to find myself in this repeat situation where I was spending time & money to prepare 5 minutes worth of entertainment that may or may not even be enjoyable.
At the same time, I was determined to find ways to keep the boys entertained that didn’t involve screen time. I’m a screen hater as it is, but they were already spending way too much time behind a screen for the remote learning setup their school had implemented.
This Momma was near tears & starting to wish my job was essential & couldn’t be completed remotely when my other sister & I decided to take matters into our own hands.
Building our own affordable, reliable solution
We created our own source of entertainment and the kids enjoyed it so much that we decided we should make it easily available for all the other Mommas in the world to entertain their littles.
It has a quick setup, it keeps the kids entertained for over an hour, they will problem solve, work as a team, think creatively, and it is affordable. Can I get an Amen?
Now, I’m sure you're dying to know: what is this perfect solution to entertaining your kids at home?
The solution.
At-home, easy print-and-go escape room for kids
It is an at-home escape room that is 100% prepared & packaged into this beautifully formatted downloadable document ready for you to quickly set up & put into action.
If you have seen “Build your own at-home escape room” ideas on Pinterest, this is like that, only a thousand times better because you don’t have to build it yourself. You don’t have to think of riddles & clues. You don’t have to prepare a story that guides the escape-room-style experience. You don’t have to spend time creating a bunch of documents. All you have to do is download a file, print some pages, follow some simple setup instructions & have a wonderful time with your kiddos as you watch their little brains get to work.
☆☆☆☆☆
“We had a blast, our kids are still talking about how much fun it was and asking when we can do it again.”
— Patty F.
Can’t wait to try it? We are offering you this print & go escape room for a limited time offer of only $24.99!
What qualifies my sister & I to develop an at home escape room? Well, we owned an escape room and built all our escape room experiences from scratch prior to this pandemic mess. We closed it a few months into the pandemic, but we decided to use that experience to develop an at home escape room for our nephews. The initial creation & design was a TON of work. But now that the hard work is done, we want to share the fun with you!
If you have done escape rooms before, you will know that not all escape rooms are created equal. Some are super lame. Some are fun, but not all that immersive. Some, really nail it on the head & provide a wonderful experience that is challenging, entertaining & well designed in terms of storyline, quality, puzzle elements, etc.
My sister & I design escape rooms that fall into the latter category. My sister has a Masters degree in theatre & I have a Masters in business. Together, we bring the perfect mix of artsy & analytical to design epic escape rooms.
What is an escape room?
An escape room is a problem/puzzle-solving adventure. In the traditional sense, players come into a room and get locked in. They then have to solve puzzles in order to escape. The best escape rooms integrate a storyline with the puzzles so that you follow a narrative of some kind while attempting to escape. They also incorporate puzzles of varying difficulties that hit on various ways of thinking and critical problem-solving. Some puzzles might be about numbers while others are color-based, etc.
The Treasure of the Red Sea - At home escape room for kids
For this at-home escape room, you won’t be locking anyone in. Instead, you’ll set up puzzles all through your house. When your kids solve one puzzle, they’ll have to find the next one to move forward.
The Treasure of the Red Sea is a pirate-themed escape room that takes your kids on an adventure to find the great lost treasure of the Red Sea. They’ll take on multiple sea/pirate-themed puzzles that will challenge their brains and get their creativity flowing.
My Nephews’ Feedback on the Experience
I love my nephews to pieces, but let me tell you that they are not the easiest to entertain. That is why I was so thrilled with their feedback on the downloadable escape room experience.
They said it was a ton of fun & immediately asked if they could do another one. That wasn’t an option at the time, so they ended up doing the same one again later. You might be scratching your head wondering how that is possible since they already solved all the riddles and clues. Yes, I’m still scratching my head too, but they enjoyed doing it for a second time.
The Brain Benefits
What was even more impressive than their enthusiastic feedback was what they didn’t even realize was happening. They were practicing and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills & it absolutely didn’t feel like homework!
Teamwork
We all know how important it is to be able to participate in a team. If you are a Momma, or pretty much any human with eyes, you also know about the naturally occurring sibling rivalry that typically trumps any team efforts.
I was so amazed by the way the boys came together as a team to solve this escape room. They have very different personalities & thought processes. Their differences made each of them shine at different points in their escape experience.
Creative thinking/problem solving
There is something so beautiful about watching kids solve a problem & listening to them propose solutions that you hadn’t even considered yourself. This escape room invites your kiddos to solve visual puzzles, to engage in listening, to brainstorm, to crack riddles, to decode ciphers, and more.
Reading
Again, if I say, “It’s time to do your reading for today,” nobody comes running. But, guess what they did a ton of throughout the escape room? They were reading the riddles & clues & oftentimes reading them more than once. Their reading required understanding in order to solve puzzles so I know that they were getting a good dose of reading practice that had a real-life application.
Map skills
In this escape room kids are invited to look at maps, to read coordinates, and to arrive at logical conclusions based on what they discover! I don’t know about you, but with three boys, maps are a source of endless wonder and joy and I was pretty excited to have the boys engaging with them in a way that will contribute to their mountaineering skills later on.
Telling time
Phew! The clock puzzle can be a doozie, but well worth the effort. This puzzle introduces the concept of time zones and gets your kids to think about adding time and taking away time. Hey, anything that will contribute to them becoming punctual adults, am I right?
Patterns/Drawing
Multiple puzzles engage your kids into drawing and tracing skills, pattern identification, object searches, and more. This is great for hand-eye coordination, opening that creative outlet, and encouraging pattern identification.
Listening
The listening puzzle is so much fun. It is more intuitive and simpler, which is a great pay off for the kids. They get to be immersed in the pirate life and get to practice critical and intentional listening.
There’s more to it...
And these aren’t even all the skills used in this escape room! Seriously, the list could go on, but I think you get the picture.
So, if you are looking for a stress free form of at home entertainment for your kiddos download your copy of The Red Sea at home Escape Room today! This is a $250 value that is currently available for only 24.99! Act now, this special pricing won’t be available for long!
What is required of you?
If you have tried setting up an escape room at home, you might be hesitant wondering how much work this is really going to be for you. Or worried that you aren’t creative and don’t want to have to come up with riddles & clues or develop any artwork.
Let me reassure you that this digital download escape room will have your kids entertained in no time & require minimal time & energy for you. All that you need to do is:
Purchase & download your escape room
Quickly review the setup directions that we have provided
Print the materials (or have them printed at a print shop nearby)
Open up a few links on your phone (one for an optional soundtrack, one for a sound puzzle)
Hide puzzles around your house
OPTIONAL: you can choose to cut out some of the puzzles to make them more interactive
That’s it, Momma! You can join the world of Pinterest Perfect Momma’s with minimal effort on your end! Download your escape room today & sit back & enjoy the fun!
Want to save $10? For a very short time, we will be offering customers an opportunity to take an extra $10 off the sales price! Add your email below to learn how you could get $10 off of your Treasure of the Red Sea escape room today!
