Seven ways to unglue kids from digital toys
Are your kids bored and restless—especially if you wish to keep them from becoming glued to their digital toys: the computer, Xbox, smartphone? Christmas is still a long way off and summer is clearly over in our part of the world, so kids may be whining for something fun to do.
Steve and Ruth Bennett, authors of the earlier best-selling book, 365 TV-Free Activities You Can Do With Your Child (BPT Press), have written a new book to help encourage creativity and wholesome activity without a computer, TV, cell or smart phone. It is called 101 Offline Activities You Can Do With Your Child. I dug through their book and pulled a number of activities that looked fun or interesting, doable and safe. They may not all appeal to your family but I’ll be happy if you get one or two new ideas.
Adventure Treks: Pretend your house is like a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie set and have kids step on safe places like towels, old throw pillows, sheets of paper, old clothes and soft cushions between dangers like volcano lava, alligators, snakes, crevices, and quicksand. Perhaps there is a treasure at one end, or just safely make it back to their space-swamp vehicle (the couch)? They can also incorporate beds, chairs and sofas as safe or “solid ground.”
Categories Unlimited: This one doesn’t need any supplies at all and can help pass time before dinner. A child names a category such as “color,” and then you and the kids take turns naming representative foods. Red, for instance, might bring to mind apple, radish, and tomato. Once all the colors are exhausted, you can use other categories, such as sweet foods or foods that can be eaten only with a spoon. You can use any kind of category. To make it more challenging, have people name items in alphabetical order.
Changing Rooms: Requires imagination only. Pick a room, or a part of the room as the playing area. Have players study it well, and then have them close eyes or go out of the room for a minute. You then alter something to see if he or she can figure out what’s different. (Change one magazine in a stack, move a pillow, move the toaster, put a scarf on a table, etc.) Just make sure the “changer” puts back whatever they changed before you go on. Take turns being the changer.
Crazy Street Signs: Great game if you are stuck in traffic. Turn work and road signs into wacky, funny messages. First, a player can only change one word on the sign. Second, the word that gets changed must begin with the same letter as the word that takes its place, and so on. “Men at work” becomes “Martians at work” etc. You can decide what the rule for changing the sign is each time you play.
Folding Screen: The authors say “this folding screen is something your kids will have fun making and using for a long time.” I agree. Use three or four large pieces of heavy cardboard—such as the sides from an appliance box. If the box is intact, cut open one corner so that the sides are still connected and fold it accordion style so that it stands up (or connect separate pieces together with duct tape). Then the kids can decorate the screen using paints, markers, pictures, paper. They can make a reading nook, a “tropical island,” a club house. When they want to change the whole look, paint each side with white paint and start over.
Label Master: Let kids make new labels for the cans and boxes of food in your pantry: have them make up names, nutritional ingredients, advertising slogans. Smaller children can draw pictures on the can or box. The crazier the better! (Just make sure you can still figure out what is really in that can of soup they’ve labeled “Yummiest Soup Ever.”)
Kitchen bowling or golf: If your kids don’t like some of the quiet ideas, maybe this will hold their interest. Use a soft foam or rubber ball. Then set up recycled paper cups on the floor like bowling pins and mark a line with masking tape or designate a certain line between floor tiles. Your kids stand behind the line and gently roll the ball at the cups. Older kids can keep score. Or, play golf with a plastic pitcher on its side on the floor and use a wrapping paper tube as a putter. Vary distances, and play around corners or objects.
My kids were great at inventing their own games and activities, like “flea market,” pretending to be squirrels making homes out of leaf piles, and playing “Victorian-Era English orphans” using raggedy clothes out of the dress up box. If your kids aren’t used to making up their own games, helping them see how much fun they can have with a little bit of nothing may help launch them into creating even more pastimes.
The authors’ website is http://www.offlineactivities.com and they are soliciting more ideas (maybe your kids’ ideas) for future collections at ideas@offlineactivities.com. Or send your ideas to me at MelodieD@MennoMedia.org and I’ll pass them on.
Another Way is a column from Third Way Media by Melodie Davis. She is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner and has written Another Way since 1987. She is also the producer and co-host of Shaping Families radio program (http://www.shapingfamilies.com) airing nationally.
Steve and Ruth Bennett, authors of the earlier best-selling book, 365 TV-Free Activities You Can Do With Your Child (BPT Press), have written a new book to help encourage creativity and wholesome activity without a computer, TV, cell or smart phone. It is called 101 Offline Activities You Can Do With Your Child. I dug through their book and pulled a number of activities that looked fun or interesting, doable and safe. They may not all appeal to your family but I’ll be happy if you get one or two new ideas.
Adventure Treks: Pretend your house is like a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie set and have kids step on safe places like towels, old throw pillows, sheets of paper, old clothes and soft cushions between dangers like volcano lava, alligators, snakes, crevices, and quicksand. Perhaps there is a treasure at one end, or just safely make it back to their space-swamp vehicle (the couch)? They can also incorporate beds, chairs and sofas as safe or “solid ground.”
Categories Unlimited: This one doesn’t need any supplies at all and can help pass time before dinner. A child names a category such as “color,” and then you and the kids take turns naming representative foods. Red, for instance, might bring to mind apple, radish, and tomato. Once all the colors are exhausted, you can use other categories, such as sweet foods or foods that can be eaten only with a spoon. You can use any kind of category. To make it more challenging, have people name items in alphabetical order.
Changing Rooms: Requires imagination only. Pick a room, or a part of the room as the playing area. Have players study it well, and then have them close eyes or go out of the room for a minute. You then alter something to see if he or she can figure out what’s different. (Change one magazine in a stack, move a pillow, move the toaster, put a scarf on a table, etc.) Just make sure the “changer” puts back whatever they changed before you go on. Take turns being the changer.
Crazy Street Signs: Great game if you are stuck in traffic. Turn work and road signs into wacky, funny messages. First, a player can only change one word on the sign. Second, the word that gets changed must begin with the same letter as the word that takes its place, and so on. “Men at work” becomes “Martians at work” etc. You can decide what the rule for changing the sign is each time you play.
Folding Screen: The authors say “this folding screen is something your kids will have fun making and using for a long time.” I agree. Use three or four large pieces of heavy cardboard—such as the sides from an appliance box. If the box is intact, cut open one corner so that the sides are still connected and fold it accordion style so that it stands up (or connect separate pieces together with duct tape). Then the kids can decorate the screen using paints, markers, pictures, paper. They can make a reading nook, a “tropical island,” a club house. When they want to change the whole look, paint each side with white paint and start over.
Label Master: Let kids make new labels for the cans and boxes of food in your pantry: have them make up names, nutritional ingredients, advertising slogans. Smaller children can draw pictures on the can or box. The crazier the better! (Just make sure you can still figure out what is really in that can of soup they’ve labeled “Yummiest Soup Ever.”)
Kitchen bowling or golf: If your kids don’t like some of the quiet ideas, maybe this will hold their interest. Use a soft foam or rubber ball. Then set up recycled paper cups on the floor like bowling pins and mark a line with masking tape or designate a certain line between floor tiles. Your kids stand behind the line and gently roll the ball at the cups. Older kids can keep score. Or, play golf with a plastic pitcher on its side on the floor and use a wrapping paper tube as a putter. Vary distances, and play around corners or objects.
My kids were great at inventing their own games and activities, like “flea market,” pretending to be squirrels making homes out of leaf piles, and playing “Victorian-Era English orphans” using raggedy clothes out of the dress up box. If your kids aren’t used to making up their own games, helping them see how much fun they can have with a little bit of nothing may help launch them into creating even more pastimes.
The authors’ website is http://www.offlineactivities.com and they are soliciting more ideas (maybe your kids’ ideas) for future collections at ideas@offlineactivities.com. Or send your ideas to me at MelodieD@MennoMedia.org and I’ll pass them on.
Another Way is a column from Third Way Media by Melodie Davis. She is the author of nine books, most recently Whatever Happened to Dinner and has written Another Way since 1987. She is also the producer and co-host of Shaping Families radio program (http://www.shapingfamilies.com) airing nationally.
Published: November 1, 2011
