Youth Activities for Social Distancing
Consult State and Local Health Authorities for important news and updates: CLICK HERE
This page will collect activities, challenges, or other programs appropriate for social distancing for the remainder of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you have any activity ideas or resources, please contact and share these activities with Lily Tegner at AmeriCorps2@alaskachildrenstrust.org
Summer Activity Guide: 150 Youth Activities and Challenges
Planning for summer just got a whole lot easier! We heard your concerns about how to maintain engagement throughout an atypical summer and have developed a suite of fun and engaging activities and challenges designed specifically to accommodate COVID-19 summer.
The Summer Activity Guide provides you with 150 student activities and challenges. These activities and challenges have been adapted for in-person and virtual instruction, or a hybrid of both, as well as sent as take-home packets. Please use and share however you like. The 150 will be released in batches throughout the summer so check back every two weeks to find new and exciting activities to do and share with your students.
The Summer Activity Guide has been developed for the 50 State Afterschool Network with leadership from the Georgia Statewide Afterschool Network with funding support from the Alaska Afterschool Network to engage and support children and youth nationwide.
DiscoverE
As we all navigate remote learning, Discover Engineering is building has built a library of hands-on activities, articles for parents and educators, and video challenges you can use to engage kids in engineering at home! At-home activities include:
And more!
VOX ATL Educator’s Guide
VOX ATL Educator’s Guide can be used for in –person or virtual programming and uses teens’ content as a jumping off point for exploring critical issues of the day; it is designed to help develop skills aligned with Georgia’s English Language Arts Standards of Excellence and Afterschool & Youth Development Quality Standards. VOX ATL, an afterschool program that elevates teen voices in Atlanta through writing, music, podcasts, and videos, writes, “we have paired up with students in the MACIE* program at Georgia State University to publish an interdisciplinary resource guide merging both mental health and social action that can be implemented into digital classroom instruction. Our goal is to create a technologically accessible series of empowering, relevant, and standard-based lesson plans for educators and students… This guide contains lessons focusing on the process and practice of important literacy, critical thinking and social skills. Each lesson is designed to facilitate important conversations about what is going on in teens’ lives while supporting their mental and creative health.”
4-H at Home Weekly Activities
4‑H at Home provides hands-on, educational activities for kids and teens to do while they’re home from school during COVID-19. Get our latest 4‑H at Home Activity Guide, activities from 4‑H Land-Grant Universities, and more!
Weekly activities are updated every Monday. Activities include:
Plus, download the 4-H at Home Activity Guide for more!
Building Community Social Distancing Activities
Building community in a youth program is important for many reasons. A strong, welcoming community can help young people feel safe, feel a sense of belonging, and build their sense of selves within a group. Now, more than ever, building safe environments for youth to reconnect in-person, or continue to connect virtually, is extremely important. As Alaska is reopening during COVID-19, time must be taken to build a that safe, nurturing space within our programs for youth to return to.
This resource is a collection of activities provided by the David Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality’s Youth Worker Method series module, Building Community. This resource contains group games that are short, easy to lead activities to dothat can be done with a group while maintaining safety and health protocols within your program.
Project Learning Tree - Environmental Sensory Activities for Preschoolers
Sensory play is the foundation of all the skills children will build upon later in their educational journey. When young children learn through multiple senses simultaneously, their cognitive skills grow. When preschoolers use their senses to explore objects, they file it way in their memories. These “sensory” memories begin the process of understanding and gaining knowledge. That is why the most beneficial sensory play engages multiple senses in one activity. Engaging early learners by providing them with opportunities to actively use their senses as they explore the world around them is a great way to pair STEM with children’s developmental needs.
Mizzen by Mott
Mizzen by Mott is a new app built with and for afterschool professionals to provide high-quality, engaging learning content to the afterschool field. To meet the needs of this moment, the Mizzen team has added new activity playlists and multi-week modules that can be done at home or in small-group settings. The app’s content focuses on youth learning and well-being and is provided by organizations like Jazz at Lincoln Center, the California Academy of Sciences, After-School All-Stars, OregonAsk and VentureLab. Through support from the Mott Foundation, the app and all of its content are available for FREE to afterschool providers.
Features Include:
High-quality content from top afterschool curriculum experts. Mizzen offers over 1,000 pieces of content that foster learning and well-being through activities in arts, STEM, literacy, digital media and entrepreneurship. Examples include:
Pro Tips & organizational tools that help you hone your skills, address challenges and opportunities, and bring content to life — whether delivered in person or virtually. Features like scheduling and messaging will support your planning, coordination, and communications.
Download now onto your smartphone or tablet!
Alaska Summer Reading Challenges for every age
The Alaska State Library is encouraging families to read together every day this summer. Daily reading is the best way to prevent summer learning loss in children. When parents read aloud to their children, they are promoting the development of positive social and cognitive skills. Parents who read aloud to their children are demonstrating that reading is important and enjoyable.
The Alaska Summer Reading Challenges for every age is inviting everyone to read 10 or more hours this summer and complete at least one of the fun and engaging activity badges.
Resources for Libraries: Alaska Summer Reading Challenges for every age
Libraries sharing information about the Alaska Summer Reading Challenges for every age to their community members, may want to use the promotional resources available from the Statewide Summer Reading webpage.