Kid-Friendly Recipes, Meal Prep, Activities & More
Many of us are facing the challenges of being at home more, which also means eating even more meals at home. This doesn’t mean we can’t have tasty and healthy meals. So we’re here to share some kid-friendly recipes, comfort food recipes, using up leftover recipes, meal prep tips, at-home activities and more to help us all have more fun while being “cooped up”.
Go to the bottom of this post for a great list of crafts, activities, printables and more from some of our favourite sites!
All of the recipes in this collage are here on our site. Read to the end for a list of these tasty recipes.
Disclosure: I am participating in the Chicken Farmers of Canada campaign managed by SJ Consulting. I received compensation in exchange for my participation in this campaign. The opinions on this site are my own.
Right now we need all the help we can get and that includes, tips, tricks, hacks and more to help us with having tasty meals at home. Let’s face it, more of us are cooking up even more meals because many are home even more. Our regular routines could have included, the kids at school during the day so they had their school lunches, mom and/or dad working out of the home and the list goes on. Many are just at home more and we know it has its challenges. 
Chicken pasta salad recipes from Chicken Farmers of Canada
Kid-friendly recipes, healthy meals and more
The amazing folks over at Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC) whose members (yes the chicken farmers) are even busier ensuring that they help to keep chicken stocked at our local grocery stores. They also want to help us to create tasty meals, healthy meals and more while we’re at home.
They’ve put together some fabulous recipes including kid-friendly recipes along with tips to avoid stress-eating because that is definitely a thing right now, at least it is for me! In addition to ways to pass the time and safety tips. Check out their “Cooped-Up” page for great ideas, recipes and tips. You can also check out all of our recipes right here on Powered by Mom by clicking our: Recipes Category. You can also see our recipes by category (appetizers, desserts etc..) by placing your cursor over the Recipes menu at the top of our page. It will then show a drop-down menu of all the categories in recipes. See the image below on what to look for.
We’re also going to share some of our favourite at-home activities & ones we’ve found from some of our favourite sites.
Healthy Shepherd’s Pie from Chicken Farmers of Canada is also one of many kid-friendly recipes
Make-Ahead Freezer Meals
They have a great section on Make-Ahead freezer meals like these oh so tasty looking, individual chicken pot pies. I love the individual portions idea if you’re able to do that. This way family members can take out just what they want to eat whether it’s for lunch or dinner.
You might just be surprised at how easy many if not all of these recipes they have on their Cooped-Up page are and there are a ton of kid-friendly recipes too. If you’re looking for a bigger chicken pot pie meal but don’t want the fuss of using several pots and pans, check out our Cast Iron Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuits.It’s also one of our many kid-friendly recipes.
Indoor At-Home Activities
What have you and your family been doing to keep cabin fever at bay? I am used to working at home so it’s not as big of an adjustment for me, however, having my daughter at home all of the time and hubby more and more that is a big adjustment. So we’ve started to look at what activities we can do to break-up the boredom and to get my daughter and hubby off of the video games too!
Board Games
I went rummaging through our closets and pulled out some board games that haven’t seen the light of day in years, yes years. Some of these are ones we used to play with our daughter when she was younger and then video games took over! I was surprised to find that we even had two of the Pictionary game, one was not even opened so I donated one to another family to help with their boredom. 
So we started with a classic, good ole Monopoly and as you can see our board has seen better days but hey everything else was in good condition. We’ve ended up having a few Monopoloy challenges and a lot of fun. Now that our daughter is a high school grad, she can beat us at the game, which was not the case when she was younger. So of course she enjoyed playing Monopoly even more now.
Who doesn’t love to pass GO and collect $200?! No one I know and don’t we wish we could that in real life!
Discover new hobbies or re-discover old ones
Have you been wanting to try a certain hobby and just haven’t had the time? You know, learn the guitar (hello YouTube) or learn how to draw etc..? You get the idea and guess what you probably have time now! I have rediscovered an old hobby, one I haven’t done in about 5 years (gasp) but guesst what? I still have all of the supplies and that is card-making and scrapbooking, but mostly card-making. 
I have a huge supply of cardstock, patterned paper, craft punches, embossing material, a million stamps and more. I had really been into card-making and had garnered quite the collection that I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of. I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t have the time any more as I used to make the cards as a way to relieve stress and express my creativity from my stressful university job. However, when I started working from home it seems I had less time for it. Weird. 
Forgive the not so great photos as back then photography was not one of my hobbies but above is one of the cards I made years ago. I used to make birthday cards, Christmas cards and more which you can see below. Speaking of photography, it’s one of my hobbies I’ve been spending some time on to make my recipe photos better and when I can travel again, better travel photos. It’s a great time to get better at a hobby too!
Crafts
Even if you’re not into card-making if you’ve got kids, more than likely you have some sort of craft supplies whether it’s card stock, paints, or whatever. Now is the time to use them, let your kids’ imaginations go wild!
Go to the bottom of this post for a great list of crafts, activities, printables and more from some of our favourite sites!
Another terrible photo but another one of my handmade cards that I made back in the day.
Play with your pets
As a family with two dogs and a cat, we know our dogs have enjoyed having more time with their people and let’s face it puppy snuggles are awesome.
After all who wouldn’t want to cuddle with these cuties like our Nyx whom we adopted this past December. She’s actually the puppy as she’s only 6 months old and oh what a character. 
Then of course there’s this cutie our Cleo our 2 year-old rescue chihuahua.
Start an Instagram account for your pets
Okay, I’m actually kidding on this one, well sort of. If it’s something you want to do go for it. I started one that features all 3 of our rescue pets, Nyx, Cleo and Ollie the cat who is a little harder to capture on camera. You can check them out on Instagram at RescuePetAdventures
Outdoor Activities
Whether you can safely walk around your neighbourhood (hello keep social distancing) or are just hanging out in your own backyard these are outdoor activities that will help keep you busy and engaged. Some of these can also be done if you live in an apartment.
Nature Lessons, Observations and Nature Photography
Have a nature lesson with all the living things in the yard from birds, squirresl bugs to worms or if that’s not your thing plant-life. Of if you’re me take this opportunity to photograph all the things outside that catch your attention. I’m lucky that I literally have a forest 20 feet in front of my front door. We can go in there and explore away and not run into anyone. So of course I snapped photos every time I go in there which includes walking our dogs. 
Above are the photos I snapped outside in yard and in the forest, it’s a great time to appreciate nature. You can also get photos of beautiful things in your yard. If there’s plant life it’s interesting in my opinion to photograph or lookup informtion on plants if that’s more your stile. Like even about the every day fern, dandelions are also interesting to look at and photograph.
So yes I snapped photos of plants that are everywhere too. What plants are near you?
Clean up/prep the garden or patio
Do you have a garden? Even if it’s a patio garden now is a great time to do some weeding, clean out the plant pots and more. This is what I ended up doing just yesterday. I pulled out all the dead plants from my pots in my front yard, trimmed the overgrown plants and just generally cleaned up my front yard.
Make sure to PIN this for later for all the fabulous recipes, tips and more!
Whew, that’s a lot of ideas already so as promised here’s a list of the recipes we have in the collage at the very beginning of this post in order of left to right, many of which are kid-friendly recipes:
- Chicken Bacon Casserole
- Chicken Corn Chowder
- Hawaiian BBQ Chicken
- Sheet Pan Cashew Chicken
- Instant Pot Lemon Chicken
- 3 Cheese Pesto Chicken Pasta Bake
What recipes would you love to try? Don’t forget to go to the “Cooped-Up” page for more great ideas.
As promised here is the list of sites with some fun activities, crafts, printables and more for you and the kiddos to do!
Bluebird Plate Craft – This N that With Olivia
Women Sun Pendant Craft – Celebrate Woman Today
Minimalist Egg Carton Wreath Craft Tutorial – Celebrate Woman Today
More info about Chicken Farmers of Canada can be found HERE
Facebook: Canadian Chicken, Twitter: @ChickenFarmers, Instagram: @ChickenDotCA; Pinterest:ChickenDotCA.
Sarah says
Thank you for the recipes and dinner ideas to involve kids. I’ve learned that when the little ones help make the meal, they are more likely to eat it!
Mia E. says
Thanks for all of these super ideas. It does make me wish that I could see my grandkids so we could do these fun games and cooking together but in the meantime I will have lots of prepared meals in my freezer and a great looking yard.
Erin King says
Great collection of ideas and recipes! These will keep me busy!
Molli Taylor says
thank you! making so many meals at home now, everyone getting sick of what i make lol
Kayla Norris says
I love this list!! Need to do the unicorn planter today. Love the nature photography. Great tips and all doable with stuff we have around.
Linda Linneman says
These are such great suggestions. My grandchildren could learn about making some good and healthy recipes. Also many great games and crafts. I really appreciate this article. Thank you so much for sharing
Sarah L says
Lots of fun things to do. Now that the weather is warming up might be time to start a garden.
mike gismondi says
I have been looking for something like this to do with my kids. Thanks!
Shirley O says
A great selection of activity and recipe ideas. The recipe for Cast Iron Chicken Pot Pie with Biscuits is a must try.
Powered by Mom says
It is so yummy, it’s a family favourite.