New Zealand / Covid 19

Covid-19 lockdown challenges

16:50 pm on 31 March 2020

With millions of people staying home during the Covid-19 lockdown, the time is ripe for a friendly challenge. There's something for everyone, here's our picks.

A Man with a Pearl Earing Photo: Twitter / @sallywisebain

A Māori phrase a day

Thousands of people are jumping on the te reo Māori waka and challenging themselves to learn a phrase a day.

Māori language lecturer at AUT, Hemi Kelly, has created a Facebook group called 'A Māori Phrase A Day', based on a book he released earlier in the year.

Every day he shares a video with useful phrases to learn.

Today's phrases are:

I tea ta In the morning

E oho Wake up

Maranga mai Get Up

Billy Porter's fashion challenge

Arguably the best dressed person at any awards ceremony is Billy Porter - the performer, singer and actor, best known for his role in the FX show Pose.

He knows how to make an entrance too; at last year's Met Gala Porter was carried down the red carpet on a litter carried by six burly men - the theme was Camp after all.

Porter's challenged people to recreate his iconic Met Gala look, using items found only around the house.

It's fair to say it's the kids who are thriving at this one.

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Day 14: Hell of days. Beau was a major handful today. When his bp is not under control he doesn’t feel great and his norepinephrine level shoots up- one time it was like 10 times higher than it should have been and his medical team was convinced he had to have a tumor on he’s adrenal gland- he didn’t. It’s just how he’s made. Sometimes his body gets stuck in paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity, which basically means his nervous system is stuck in fight or flight mode. It’s bad, and he feels really bad, and he looks really bad and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it but try to knock him out and hope he wakes up reset. He’s on a combination of 6 different blood pressure medications, and on good days things are easy, on bad days the counter looks like a pharmacy and Beau won’t keep his pants on. Today was a no pants day. Beau struggled for the first half of the day, but he did recover just in time for him to participate in #billyporterfashionchallenge which he was so excited about. Being outside in the front yard was fun, it was raining a little bit but nothing will stop him from striking a pose. Oh Beau. #specialneeds #neurodiversity #icandoallthings #beau

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The Down Bad challenge

One for the rappers, the #downbadchallenge sees them out-freestyle each other on top of the Down Bad beat by Dreamville.

Starting in the UK, the challenge has now made its way from Australia to our shores.

Spitting bars on day one of the lockdown was Auckland rapper JessB.

Jess passed it on to Raiza Biza, who passed it on to Mo Muse and it's made its way from there.

Among those who have taken up the challenge here are PollyHill, Abdul Kaye and Melodownz. With two nominations already, Church & AP is expected to be the next in line.

  • If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP - don't show up at a medical centre

Works of art

The Getty Museum has challenged people to recreate famous artworks using what they can find at home.

Whether you're a fan of Girl with a Pearl Earing, Munch's The Scream or you'd rather Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup - the possibilities are almost endless.

Madonna and Child. Photo: Twitter / @gettymuseum

Creative challenge

For those who are wanting to stay creative over the lockdown period, whether you're a keen photographer, like to draw or you're a skilled meme maker, #creativelockdownnz has series of short daily projects could help you out.

There's everything from designing your dream tattoo to designing a plant that can't be killed if you forget to water it - fitting in this lockdown climate.

Day three's challenge was foods that shouldn't go together but totally do.

The cricket challenge

White Fern Suzie Bates has put out a challenge to anyone with a tennis ball and cricket bat lying around the house - bouncing a tennis ball five times on each edge of a cricket bat, seeing how many you can do in row.

The trick shot challenge

This one seems to be slightly different depending on your sport of choice. For the basketballers, it's about getting the ball in the hoop creatively, whether it's bouncing it off a wall first, drop kicking it in or throwing it in backwards.

For Black Sticks veteran Gemma McCaw, the challenge was to see how many kick-ups she could do in a row using a rugby ball. She made it to 25.

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