Giving children back their childhood by swimming upstream in this technological world, and trying not to drown!
Happy Turn-Off Week everyone! I will try to blog a bit this week, but I might not be quite as verbose - a good thing perhaps?
My positive thoughts are with all who are trying to go without their screens this week. Good luck and have fun!
Tags: Everything Else!Posted: April 20th, 2008 under Everything Else!.
Comments: none
Congratulations, you are over half way there! At noon today, Turnoff Week (and the 2nd Annual TV Turnoff Week Blog Challenge) was half-completed.
So how is it? Easier than you thought? Harder than you thought? Have you met your goals? Readjusted your goals? Given up your goals? Don’t worry if it is harder than you thought, and rejoice if it is easier!
For me, so far I have to say it has been much easier than I expected. My big “screen issue” is the computer, and honestly, I think I was in need of a bit of a blog break. I have had a pretty happy and productive week so far, however my rapidly growing collection of unanswered emails is gnawing insidiously at the edges of my thoughts…
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A few links to help you if you need them-
Unplugging Kids
Craft/Activity Ideas: Unplugged Projects
Unplugging You
Tags: Everything Else!, TV Turn-Off Week, TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge
Posted: April 24th, 2008 under Everything Else!, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge.
Comments: 4
I am not supposed to be online much this week since it is Turnoff Week and I am the creator/host of the 2nd Annual TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge (must set a good example you know!), so I will simply give you a few quick “free association” links to some worthy children’s books that come to mind when I think of Earth Day:
And here is an inspirational one by Rachel Carson for adults, that I just love:
If you want, you can read my full post about this book here.
Also: For more on kids and the environment, please see my post on Raising Environmentally Aware Children.
Happy Earth Day to all, and to all a good night!
Tags: Book Recommendations, Book Recommendations, children's books, children's books, Earth Day, educational, environment, environment, Everything Else!, kids' books, nature, nature, nature booksPosted: April 21st, 2008 under Book Recommendations, Everything Else!, children's books, educational, environment, kids' books, nature, nature.
Comments: 2
So what to do for this week’s Unplugged Project theme: scissors? We could try a little Modular Kirigami, or some traditional Kirigami. In fact why not create an exact 3D miniature replica of our town using only one sheet of paper and some scissors!! Well…maybe not. But it was a fun thought to consider.
Instead we decided to tackle something that I remembered from my childhood, and which seemed a bit more manageable in scope - silhouettes. As is often the case with these Unplugged Projects, there was an evolution: the silhouettes became stick puppets, which led to a puppet show and even a shadow puppet show!
Here are the materials: desk lamp, white paper, masking tape, pencil, glue stick, dark colored construction paper and, of course, scissors.
We set ourselves up in the guest room which has heavy velvet curtains that can make the room quite dark, even in the daytime. We put out a small chair parallel to a blank wall. We then set the lamp on a table as far away from the chair as possible (the farther away the lamp is, the smaller the shadow will be and you want the whole head to be able to fit on one piece of paper). My oldest daughter sat down and I masking-taped some paper to the wall where her shadow fell.
I traced around the outline. I repeated the process with my 5 year-old son, but not my 2 year-old since I knew she wouldn’t sit still long enough.
The kids got stuffed animals and made their own silhouettes of them:
Next we sat at the kitchen table and glued our white paper outlines to pieces of dark construction paper:
Then we carefully cut along the pencil markings:
Once it was cut out, all we had to do was flip the whole thing over to see a lovely dark silhouette! I glued the children’s black silhouettes to some white poster board and experimented with framing. I think I shall have to redo my son’s though, since his haircut makes him look a bit like a light bulb, or a Saturday Night Live conehead (he’s on the left, below).
The children had the brilliant idea of coloring the white sides of their silhouettes and attaching craft sticks to make stick puppets:
I was then presented with a puppet show over the arm of the sofa:
Their next inspiration was to try a shadow puppet show in the guest room using our desk lamp.
One simple project snowballed, and turned into an afternoon of fun!
TIP: I would eventually really like to make a small (4″x 6″ or 5″x 7″) silhouette of each my three children to put, matted, together in one frame. Since I don’t have a lamp powerful enough or a room large enough to be able to make silhouettes that small, I plan on reducing my tracings using a photocopier and then will follow the same simple procedure.
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If you joined us for the scissors project, thank you and please link to your post in Mr. Linky. For those of you who have chosen to turn off all those screens for Turn-Off Week (whether you are participating in the TV-Turnoff Blog Challenge or not), I shall expect you to produce true masterpieces for next week’s Unplugged Project (lots of free time, right??)!
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In honor of Spring, next week’s Unplugged Project theme will be:
Birds
Remember, the theme is only a starting point. If you can’t think of anything directly bird-related, then what is associated with birds? Feathers, nests, eggs…any of those things “count!” Be as creative as you want to!
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Tags: Activity Ideas, Activity Ideas, arts and crafts, arts and crafts, Everything Else!, paper, puppets, scissors, silhouettes, stick puppets, Unplugged Project, Unplugged ProjectPosted: April 20th, 2008 under Activity Ideas, Everything Else!, Unplugged Project, arts and crafts.
Comments: 13
It’s not too late to join us for the 2nd Annual TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge! Turnoff Week (as it is now called, since we have more to turn off these days than just our TVs) begins tomorrow, April 21st.
Turn it off on your own, or if you need a little motivation and group support to try it, sign up for the Blog Challenge. I am giving away a $10 Amazon gift certificate to a random participant and now there is even another reward: Jens Hewerer, creator of the Billy Brown series of children’s radio plays, has very generously offered to send a complete CD set of Billy’s adventures to a random participant who completes the challenge!
So if you are “on the fence” and the thought of the potential family/environmental benefits of a TV-free week is not enough to persuade you, perhaps the chance of winning one of two prizes will nudge you over the brink.
Read “the rules” and sign up here.
Tags: Billy Brown, contest, contest, Everything Else!, Jens Hewerer, TV Turn-Off Week, TV Turn-Off Week Blog Challenge, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge, TV-Turnoff Week Blog ChallengePosted: April 20th, 2008 under Everything Else!, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge, contest.
Comments: 3
I am excited to report that in honor of Turnoff Week, Brad Hauber of Bubblegum Books is kindly offering Unplug Your Kids readers a 20% discount on any of Bubblegum’s books ordered through their website. Not only that, but the books will be autographed by author Julie Goulis!
The Bubblegum books (all by Julie Goulis and illustrated by John Ferguson), The Things a String Can Be, The Topsy-Turvy Towel, and Something Shiny, Something Round, are all about the joys of imaginary play and even include activity ideas related to the story. Unfortunately they won’t get to you in time for Turnoff Week, but they are a worthy addition to your children’s personal library for anytime.
If you are interested in this offer, head over to Bubblegum Books before May 1st and do a little shopping. Simply enter the code: unplug (must be all lowercase) when checking out, and a 20% discount will be applied to your order. Thanks Brad!
(While you are over there, print out some free coloring pages or a word search puzzle from their Goodies page.)
Tags: Book Recommendations, Brad Hauber, Bubblegum Books, children's books, children's books, coupon code, discount offer, Everything Else!, John Ferguson, Julie Goulis, kids' books, picture books, TV Turn-Off Week, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week, young childrenPosted: April 19th, 2008 under Book Recommendations, Everything Else!, TV-Turnoff Week, children's books, kids' books, picture books, young children.
Comments: none
Wow! Thursday was my biggest day ever thanks to all the people searching for information about TV-Turnoff Week. I actually had to upgrade my account in order to avoid exceeding my bandwidth! I only went from “Baby” to “Hatchling” … so I am really not THAT big time, but it was certainly a huge surprise for me.
Today I had planned a post with some alternative ideas to TV, so with this kind of an audience, I guess I had better come up with a few!
Since we are TV-free all the time, I can tell you what my kids like to do:
Here are some suggestions and elaborations that might inspire you and your children. If anyone has any other ideas, then please comment!
Posted: April 19th, 2008 under Activity Ideas, Everything Else!, TV, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge, TV-free kids, unplugging the family.
Comments: 3
If any of you have been reading the posts by the TV Turnoff Week Blog Challenge participants, you might have noticed a common theme to just about all of them. It seems that most bloggers anticipate that unplugging the children will be far less traumatic and problematic than unplugging themselves from their computers!
I’m not sure if the reason we were drawn to blogging in the first place is because we like the connection we feel from being online, or whether the decision to write (or read) a blog created that need for connection. It is indeed a philosophical chicken and egg issue.
But regardless of the psychology behind it, the fact remains that most of us who use our computers on a daily basis are ADDICTED (myself included). If I had any doubts about my own addiction before last year’s TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge, the difficulty I had with minimizing my computer time that week made me realize that I am indeed dependent upon the computer.
I found that the computer sitting on the desk in my kitchen was silently calling to me: “Come on, turn me on…you can just quickly check your email then turn me off again. Where’s the harm in that? …do it, do it, DO IT!!” My goal of reducing my online time to one hour, gradually and insidiously increased throughout the week to more like and hour and a half (or maybe even two). It was torture.
However several days after TV-Turnoff Week ended last year, I had something of an epiphany about the whole computer issue:
I had a similar personal revelation today. Today I took care of a friend’s one year-old, so I was caring for two one year-olds (only three months apart in age!). Dueling babies. It was rather like having twins I suppose. I had decided ahead of time that I would simply have to stay offline. I did check email and comments once during their nap, but otherwise I really was not online.
Since I had already decided that I would not have time for the computer today, I was able to deal with the very mobile, busy babies with mindfulness. My mind was not on what might be happening online. As a consequence, the day went quite smoothly and actually seemed almost easier than some days when it is just me and my one year-old…and my computer!
It all went better for me than during the Blog Challenge where my mind was always half on my computer even as I tried to do other things. It seems to me that FOCUS is the key to success. My reader seemed to have this experience also. Whether it is a “PPP New Year’s Resolution,” or caring for extra babies, the ability to not just turn it off, but forget it, not even expect it, is the key to success.
This is an excerpt from a post I wrote about a reader who emailed me the results of her TV-Turnoff week. If you want, you can read the whole post here.
Mindfulness and focus are the key to success. Can I apply these principles to my TV-Turnoff Week this year? We’ll see!
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Here are a few tips that might help make turning off your computer a bit less traumatic:
Posted: April 16th, 2008 under "mom-ideas" that work for me, Everything Else!, TV, TV-Turnoff Week, TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge.
Comments: 5
