It is easy to feel a bit stressed or bored as your stay at home is prolonged due to the COVID-19 situation. You feel less motivated to clean, cook or study, as you stare at the wall pondering over how to change your daily routine. All you have at home is a laptop, a microphone and a Wi-Fi connection. Can you do anything fun with these?

 In fact, You can! The few gadgets you have are all you need to enjoy several fun online activities. Here's a list of our recommended list of activities you should try out. 

1. Video Chat With Friends

If one of the main reasons you feel bored at home is the lack of social life, here is a tip to help you stay connected with your loved ones. Use online video chatting platforms to chat with friends face to face and show them what you are working on. A couple of these include apps like Google Hangouts, Skype, and Houseparty. 

Invite your friends to a Houseparty chat and enjoy a fun interactive game of Quick Draw, where you draw a shape and let them guess what it is. You could play 'Guess the Movie Name', 'Guess the Artist' and many other games using this simple function in the app. Moreover, You could try the Trivia Quizzes function on the app, where you and your friends can compete over who answers the most questions correctly. The Fortnight challenge is highly recommended if you are a group of gamers. 

Further chatting apps can be found on our Useful Apps for Students Studying Abroad blog.

2. Play Games Online

It is the era of gaming! If gaming was always one of your stress outlets, know that you could still enjoy a fun gaming night with friends from the comfort of your student home. Just use a streaming app to share your screen with your friends and play together. 

Kast and Discord are two of the most popular streaming apps through which you can play games together with friends. They have a stable PC version and even online and mobile versions if you wish to watch your friends play. 

Pick up any online game you love and plan a party with your friends to stream and chat together. All you need is a mic and a good Wi-Fi then you are ready for a game of League of Legends, GTA, or Fortnight. 

3. Organise An Online Book Club 

Do you miss your book club sessions at the library? You can organise a book club online and hold the very same sessions at home. Use online stores and pick a book to discuss with your friends every couple of days. Kindle has many offers on books that you might want to check out; some classic books are even available for free as well. Similarly, Google Play Books has multiple free books you could choose from. If you are up for an adventure, you could pick a free E-book by a new writer and review it with your friends. 

To create your virtual book club, you can use Goodreads to create a list of what you would like to read and share it with your friends, then create a group on the website to discuss the books together in the forum. If you would like a more interactive discussion of the book, organise a meeting in an online meeting app and prepare your points in advance. Who said meeting apps are just for companies?

4. Host a Watch Party

Did you hear about Netflix party? It is a chrome extension that allows you to watch movies and dramas with your friends and family, despite the long distance. Use this to watch a movie with your family on the other side of the world. How fun would it be to read your mother's comment on the latest episode of her favourite show? 

You could even host a party to watch your favourite Youtuber together with your friends who like him/her. Watch2gether is an online platform that allows you to stream a youtube video together with friends while chatting. 

5. Volunteer Online 

If you find satisfaction in helping your community and the people around you, online volunteering might be a good activity to help you cope with the current situation. Visit the UNV website, a United Nations volunteering website, to search for suitable opportunities for you. You could record audiobooks, teach English online, write stories, and even design brochures for events and campaigns. You can also check out the Do-It organisation website, a UK-based organisation that allows you to volunteer in many projects according to your schedule. 

6. Learn a New Musical instrument 

Did you know that you could enjoy learning a new instrument online for free? Fender Play offers three months of free guitar lessons to help you make use of your free time. All you need to do is register and add a self-generated code from the website. Similarly, you could find multiple courses online on Youtube and Udemy, make use of them to add to your list of hobbies. 

7. Try Adult Coloring Books

Popular Mandela and adult colouring books are a new trend that is very suitable for the current situation; they can help you relax and release stress. You don't even have to buy a popular Mandela book to colour; you could simply print a couple of free colouring papers from famous illustrators online to colour. If you are a fan of bears, giraffes, and animals in general, try Marjorie Sarnat's free colouring pages and if you are into Japanese art, try Audrey Kawasaki's recent colouring page. Interested in books, “The Secret Garden Book” from Johanna Basford series is our top recommended book. 

What do you think of these activities? Did you come up with your own activity? Share with us what really helps you throughout the challenging times we are going through now.