Last night I woke my two oldest children up at 2:30AM.  I led my confused and sleepy babies out onto the golf course behind our house armed with a flashlight and a blanket.  I spread out the blanket on the cool, damp grass of the fairway, we all laid on it facing northeast … and hoped that the sprinklers would not go off! Lol!

The children were astonished by what they saw – shooting stars, lots of them!  We also saw the Milky Way and several satellites marching in line across the night sky.

Our fabulous unplugged (and free!) show was the annual Perseid Meteor Shower.  The peak was the nights of August 12 and 13th, but you might still be able to see a pretty good display through the 22nd (especially if you are lucky enough to live in a low ambient light area like we do).  Just look to the northeast after midnight.

PS.  Most visible in the Northern Hemisphere, sorry!

LINKS:

EarthSky’s Meteor Shower Guide

Excellent Perseid Meteor Shower Expected

How-To: Photographing the Perseid Meteor Shower

Perseid Photo Gallery

For another of our astronomy adventures, you might like to read: The Moon Unplugged? Not For Me!! (Part 1) and Mom Unplugged vs. Evil Sleepy Poser Mom – Lunar Dilemma Part 2.

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(PHOTO:  I wish I had taken this great Perseid photo, but it is the work of Mila Zinkova.  License information can be found here.)

The August 2010 issue of Family Fun magazine has a great article entitled “The Great Unplugged Challenge” (“Better Than TV” on the cover) about a family who unplugs the TV and computer for 5 days. It would be an interesting and fun read for anyone considering unplugging their family.

Plus, I must admit proudly, that I was interviewed for the article and am mentioned (along with Unplug Your Kids) several times! VERY exciting!!

It’s on news stands now. Enjoy!

(PS.  A big thank you to Jennifer King Lindley for writing this article and for including me and Unplug Your Kids!)

I am a day late with announcing the winner of my book giveaway, sorry!  Yesterday I was able to spend a rare day with only my 9 year-old and it was just too much fun to be blogging.

Anyhow, the random winner of Zeke, Ky and the Mountain Stream by Gwynneth Beasely is:

Kara!

Thank you so much to Gwynneth for providing me a copy of her book to give away.  Kara, I will email you privately to get your address.

Thanks also to all who joined in and for all your great outdoor ideas and stories!

One of the really fun things about blogging is all the people you “meet.”  Recently a former Unplugged Project participant, blogger and now published author Gwynneth Beasley (hooray Gwynneth – congrats!!) contacted me to see if I would be interested in hosting a giveaway of one of her books.  When she mentioned that it was about the very unplugged activity of camping (unless you are in a 40 foot RV with satellite TV of course, LOL) I was definitely sold.

One night at dinner Zeke announced, ‘I have made a decision everybody.  We are going camping this weekend and no one is bringing the computer, the phone, their mobile, the TV or the DVD.’

- quote from p.1, Zeke, Ky, and the Mountain Stream

Yes, Zeke, Ky and the Mountain Stream is perfect for an Unplug Your Kids review and giveaway!

Gwynneth kindly sent me two copies all the way from Australia, one for my family to read, and the other to give away to an Unplug Your Kids reader.

I wasn’t able to show the book to my children right away since they were camping for a few days with their father.  A happy coincidence I thought!  When the kids returned from a fun camping adventure of their own, they were ripe to read the tale of Zeke and Ky’s camping trip.  They all enjoyed the book and I found them picking it up and rereading it on their own later, even my older children.

Zeke, Ky and the Mountain Stream has a large, easy to read font and the vocabulary is fairly basic which would make it a good choice for younger readers who are just transitioning to “chapter books.”  Each page contains just a few sentences of text and a simple photo illustration.  The book length (18 pages) is also great for younger children with short attention spans.  It would make a wonderful read-aloud book too and could inspire lots of conversations about camping, nature, the power of positive thinking, and the value of unplugging once in a while!

Gwynneth Beasley is also the author of five other Zeke and Ky books, all of which involve nature and typical childhood, “unplugged” experiences.  We’ll be getting a few more of these!

You can check out the links to them all below.  Also, be sure to visit Gwynneth’s blog: www.gwynnethbeasley.typepad.com for some inspiring posts and crafty ideas.

GIVEAWAY

• To enter the giveaway for my free copy of Zeke, Ky, and the Mountain Stream, simply leave a comment with a quick summary of a favorite outdoor or camping activity that you do with your children (or grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc.).

• For an additional chance(s) to win this book, you can subscribe to Unplug Your Kids (link is in upper right sidebar), and/or to Gwynneth Beasley’s blog (link is in her sidebar).  Just leave another comment here to let me know.

• The giveaway ends on Wednesday, July 28th at 8:00PM PST.  I’ll select a random winner based on all entries, and announce the winner on Thursday, July 29th!

Comments are now closed. Winner to be announced tomorrow (July 30th). Thank you all!!

On Fridays I am going to try something new.  Since I am continuously trying to dance a fine line between blogging about being an “unplugged family” and actually unplugging myself, I thought it might be fun to try quickly posting a simple photo once a week of an unplugged moment.

Hopefully it might be a less time-consuming way to encourage others to unplug, even if just a little.  For those who come here more for activity or craft ideas, they still might find something to produce that inspirational spark without a lot of words.

It’ll be kind of like a yard sale or a thrift store, you never know what you’ll find each Friday (but I’ll try to make it pretty) … and it will take me very little online time to post a tiny photographic slice of our unplugged time.

See you tomorrow for a Tiny Slice of Time!

PS. I could be brutally honest and balance this out each week with a photo of our NON-unplugged time, but that would mostly be photos of me on the computer in many varieties of clothing (shorts, jeans, dresses, pajamas…), so I’ll just leave all that to your imaginations!

“…and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
~ Benjamin Franklin

And it also makes kids learn better!

Debs of Little House on the Lees reports today on an interesting study of the benefits of regular, early bedtimes for young children.  They need 11 hours of sleep per night.

I have always been a huge fan of early bedtime for children so I feel reassured.

Now I can say with certainty that my kids go to bed early not just so I can have my own evening peace and quiet (as a Consistently Substandard Slacker Mom, I’ll confess that has always been my main reason for being a bedtime drill sergeant).  According to the study, by sending them up to their rooms earlier than most of their friends, I am actually helping them learn more easily at school too.

Thanks Debs!

What a glorious sunny, warm (but not too warm) day it was in Arizona’s mountains today. Finally we had our first real late-spring day!  It might be the last for a while judging by the forecast of cooler temperatures and yet more unbelievably strong winds again for this week.

The sun was gently warm, its blue sky background scattered with just enough gentle puffy white clouds for interest. Leaves are emerging on trees, but not yet on the Gambel Oaks. Stems are greening up and little leaf buds are miraculously presenting themselves on plants that look deader than dead.

Encouraged by the relief from the strong spring gales and finally warm air, I decided to take the Big Frost Gamble and join the throngs headed for the nursery.  Somehow I resisted the temptation to buy everything green and flowery and bought only the necessary plants  – but I know I’ll be back!

My 9 year-old and I spent a lovely day planting pots and window boxes while my husband washed cars (his number two favorite hobby after cleaning garages). My 7 year-old son made a mess map in the mud with a hose, forming lakes, islands, peninsulas and bays, each with its own name. My 4 year-old went to the park with her best friend and best friend’s mom to feed ducks and play on the play-ground.

It was a fine unplugged day!

(By the way, these examples are extracted from actual Mothers’ Day gift suggestions that I received via email at Unplug Your Kids from eager marketers!)

No.

THIS IS THE PERFECT MOTHERS’ DAY GIFT:

All real moms will understand. (Take note marketers.)

Happy Mothers’ Day!

PS. This was my actual gift from my 4 year-old this year, presented with great ceremony!

Birthday parties don’t have to involve a depressing influx of cheap, unwanted (at least by parents!), commercial toys.  If you can convince your children that family gifts suffice, you might be able to turn that excess of birthday party gift generosity into birthday giving generosity.

I really believe that children are charitable by nature.  They just need to be taught about the needs of others and encouraged to engage in charitable work and giving.  My hope is that this will help create more sensitive and socially conscious adults.

My 9 year-old daughter has enjoyed charity birthday parties for many years now.  I already wrote about her first Humane Society birthday party (she has had several of these and one of her friends is doing it now too).  After a few more years of charity parties, I now have more ideas to share with you.

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Today’s idea is the Kids-in-Need Stuffed Animal Party.

One year my daughter had a birthday party where she asked the guests to each bring one, new (tags on) stuffed animal to take to our local hospital Emergency Room.  They give them out to very sick or injured children who come in and need a little extra comfort.

I am such a proud mama when I say that she came up with this idea entirely on her own.  My sister is a physician in our local Emergency Room and having visited her aunt there, my daughter knew that they handed out stuffed animals.

In keeping with the stuffed animal theme, our party craft was stuffing our own animals with easy and inexpensive kits that I bought on Amazon.  The kids LOVED this!  My intention was that they add their animals to the donate basket, but this proved to be very unpopular and every single child elected to keep their animal (including my children).  That’s OK, at least they had fun and went home with a much-loved party favor.

TIPS:

• Make sure you check with your local Emergency Room first to see if they would even want stuffed animals, and if so, what kind.  Ours wanted tags on and no buttons or other things that could be pulled off to become choking hazards.
• Police and Sheriffs also sometimes carry stuffed animals in their cars to comfort any children they meet in accidents or other bad situations.  See if your local law enforcement departments might be interested, and what they would want.
• Based on experience, I recommend that the donated animals “disappear” after the party or younger family members might start falling in love with them!

(More ideas to come!)

One benefit of no TV that had never occurred to me when I began this experiment after the birth of my daughter nine and a half years ago, is the lack of exposure to “sexy teens!”  I am shocked sometimes when I see how some teens and tweens, dress and act.  I really am not a conservative person, in fact I consider myself to be quite liberal, but I do believe that 9 year-old girls are emotionally girls and NOT women.  What ever happened to childhood?

Some might think it backward (please don’t flame me), but I am SO relieved that my 9 1/2 year-old daughter still believes in Santa and the Tooth Fairy.  She still plays dress-up and fairies with her little sister and like-minded friends.  She is not on Facebook, nor has she ever expressed a desire to be.  Don’t berate me for “stunting” my daughter’s social and technological development.  Believe me, I am sure she will “develop socially” as soon as those hormones hit her system!  She also knows how to use a computer just fine thank you.

There are certainly many factors involved.  Her stage of physical development, her personality, and the fact that she attends a very small Montessori School all surely play a role.  But I do truly also believe that part of the fact that she has not yet become interested in “popular teen culture” is that she is not exposed to TV shows and commercials that cause her to emulate those behaviors.

My good friend friend Wishy just sent me a link to a review of an interesting-sounding book by Leonard Sax, the author of Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.  His new book is about girls:  Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls-Sexual Identity, the Cyberbubble, Obsessions, Environmental Toxins.  I urge you to read the review and see what you think.

Meanwhile, I hope that my little girls stay little girls for as long as they need to.