Working from home while finding ways to entertain your toddler, the pressures of home-schooling, even getting dinner on the table... it's all just a lot.

So, we want to give families a helping hand. Each week we’re going to send you fun and easy ways to keep the kids (and yourself) happy, healthy, while still learning and developing. 

This week we’ve got a collection of calming shows that encourage mindfulness, a way to get active from home with Jimmy Giggle, and a fun guessing game the whole family will actually want to play. 

You can rest assured that all the resources and recommendations we send have the tick of approval from ABC Kids Early Education experts.

Don’t worry – these are all simple ideas designed to help you, not to overwhelm you further. The only thing we want to add to your plate are easy weekday recipes like this comforting vegetarian baked fried rice 😉  

We're hearing from a lot of parents that their children are feeling extra anxiety right now. This collection of shows is a nice and simple way to calm kids down and encourage more mindfulness in challenging times. If things get chaotic, you could pop on this 1-minute Core Breathing video as a way to ground everyone.  

  

When the kids are getting bored this is such an easy one to pull out of your hat…(sorry, we had to!)  

  

Kids have a LOT of pent up energy which is so hard to get out in lockdown, especially if you can’t get outside during the work day. That’s where Shake and Move comes in! Shake and Move with Jimmy Giggle is a one-hour audio show with energetic music to get kids up and moving from the comfort of home.

Listen anytime here or daily at 3pm on the ABC Kids listen app

  

Our favourites are Hetty McKinnon's vegetarian baked fried rice and this self-saucing chocolate pudding.  

  

“I just wanted to say a huge thank you for making ABC Kids listen. We have it on pretty much all the time and it such a wonderful, uplifting variety of songs. Very much appreciated in these lockdown times. I love it how I can play back particular types of areas too. Keep up the great work!!" - Lucy, ABC Kids listen listener
 

Ending things on a sweet note, here's a quote from one of the wisest dads we know, Bluey's dad Bandit from the episode Takeaway. It's a nice one to keep in mind for the week ahead 😊