Dear Natalie, 

Hi Natalie! I really need advice. This week, as you know, is Thanksgiving Week. I have waited all year for this to come. I feel that after the year that we all have experienced due to Covid-19, we all just need this holiday season to arrive. Unfortunately, because of Covid-19 I won’t be able to spend time with my family. It feels like I haven’t seen them in forever. I want to be safe and keep my family safe, so the right thing to do is to just have a small Thanksgiving with my immediate family at home. Since there has been an uptick in positive cases here in Hamden and across the country, we are forced to stay indoors. I want to do something virtual with my family but I am not sure what to do. Do you have any ideas? I want to do a Zoom or a Skype call but I also want to have fun and play some games. Please let me know if you have any ideas of games or activities that I could host for my family.

Thank you, 

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous, 

Thanks for sharing your difficult situation.. I understand what you are going through. I would love to lend some ideas to you! I am also having a very small Thanksgiving break with my immediate family. Since the Corona virus has worsened, it is really important that people make the right decisions with the upcoming holidays and stay home. At least you know that you are doing your part and hopefully others will do the same. As far as games and activities are concerned, I have a few ideas. If you are planning on hosting a Zoom call, I would suggest researching different games and platforms on the internet. After researching them myself, I would suggest creating a Kahoot! account. And for one of your activities, host a Kahoot! On Zoom, there is a feature that allows you to share your screen with your family. They would be able to see the Kahoot! code and they could see who is in the lead. You could test your family’s knowledge on movies, songs or even actors. Another online platform that you could try using is the Zoom Whiteboard feature to play Pictionary. You can even search on Google for Pictionary word generators and it will generate random words of things you can draw. These are both really easy and fun ways that you can interact with your family! I hope these suggestions help you come up with some more fun activities for you and your family on Thanksgiving. 

Happy to help,

Natalie Maynard