Older children of course will have school work to do but this work will not consume the entire day and can be interspersed with fun activities. It is important to have time outdoors.

A number of people are putting teddy bears in their windows to participate in the 'bear hunt' that is becoming more popular every day.

You could have a daily 'bear hunt' and perhaps the children could make little notes before you went out to put in the mail boxes of the homes who have a bear in their front window.

Children could design their own notes which might be as simple as a smiley face or as complex as a few sentences.Young children can have a treasure hunt where they look for items of a particular colour (a different colour each day) with morning tea (perhaps a picnic on a blanket in the back yard) as the prize for finding a set number.

Primary school children might be sent on a treasure hunt to find things that start with a particular letter, rhyme with a particular word you have given them, or are made from a particular material.

Having found the set number of items children can be asked to select one of them and develop a story around that item. There are a number of online (and free) programs children can use to create a story using words and/or pictures and/or animation. Perhaps at the end of the day they can share their stories with the rest of the family.

Music provides many learning opportunities, from imitating sound sequences to the maths needed to address timing in the sequences of notes. Simple musical instruments can be made with glasses/bottles of water, combs, empty tins, paper cups and all sorts of different common household items.

Encourage children to develop their own tunes with the instruments they have made, perhaps record their tunes and encourage them to teach other family members the tune so that you can all play together each of the tunes the children have created.

Simple science experiments can be fun when the family work together. You could make your own paper, or make invisible ink so the children can send secret notes to each other, use baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano or make slime (borax and school glue for older children, or cornflour or flour-based for those who are young enough to be tempted to taste it).

Add food colouring and oil to water and watch the way it disperses, creating a water fireworks effect. Use food colouring in milk and detergent to create a wheel of colour and, at the same time, learn about emulsifiers.

Freeze water into thin sheets of ice then drop grains of salt on the ice to watch how it melts the ice. Put food colouring on the ice with the salt so that you can easily see the patterns made.

For older children this is a good opportunity to talk about erosion and the shapes caused by running water. Feel the temperature of the water versus the ice and talk about how the salt lowers the freezing point of water (and remind children this is why ice-cream has salt in it).

You could also work together to create a small garden - you could combine learning about gardening with discussions of the nutritional value of the vegetables you plant.

Later of course, when they are grown you will have the opportunity to experiment with making different dishes and trying different taste combinations. Children could keep a diary, recoding when and what was planted.

Every few days children could measure the growth and record that, along with the amount of water used, any fertilisers and maybe pesticides used to keep the plants healthy.

Older children might experiment by planting in different parts of the yard, recording different levels of soil moisture and sun/weather exposure.Also think about how children can keep in touch with their friends.

Whilst they are not able to physically get together to play, platforms such as zoom could be used to set up virtual play sessions every few days. Children can see their friends, and even play games together even though they have to remain in their homes.

Older children might be able to play interactive games such as chess. We all need to maintain our interactions with friends so that when this is over, we still have our friendship groups - these are important for our mental health.