I spent last week making final plans for our homeschool year, our most “plugged in” year yet. I think that most of us with school-aged children must be facing something similar, and I am very grateful for our online schooling options. My middle school and high school kids will all be taking online classes (I can tell you more about that in my next post if you’d like.) However, it has always been my goal to minimize screen time, and I can’t pretend that screen time in recent months at our house has been minimal. So much has gotten in the way of my ideals this year. This pandemic and the financial consequences of it that are requiring us to work more, extreme weather making outdoor play unpleasant-too brutally hot and dry for weeks followed by weeks of too much rain and nasty humidity, and being just plain stressed, overwhelmed, and discouraged at the state of everything. My goal heading into this fall is to be more intentional when I can, to spend more time planning ahead for unplugged activities for my younger kids (while structuring screen time with my older kids so that they don’t sit looking at one all the time!) but also to give myself grace when things don’t go as planned. Mom’s mental health has to be a priority as well. Please don’t forget to take care of yourself, even if that means letting your little guys watch shows in the afternoon while you read a book or catch up on work.
Over the years, whenever I have fallen into allowing more screen time than I’d like, which in my experience leads to kids not knowing what to do with themselves other than more of the same, I have sat down to make a list of activities. Some of them only require me to set out the materials, and some require me to be a part of them. Maybe two lists would be good? Activities with mom, and activities without. I have collected many books full of ideas over the nearly twenty years I’ve been parenting. I first started making these lists when my oldest son was a baby who didn’t sleep and I didn’t know what to do with him. I was twenty-two when he was born and the days were long.
When my friend, Rachel Wolf, started working on The Unplugged Family Activity Book, she had no idea how timely it would be. So many of us are looking for fresh ideas right now, or even new takes on familiar ones to help us get through these months. Rachel sent me a copy a few weeks ago and it’s a beautiful, inspiring book. The activities are divided seasonally and I always love it when a book is organized that way. When I pull out my stack of activity books to work on my lists in the coming weeks, hers will be at the top. Right now, we have loads of marigolds blooming and Rachel’s summer flower bunting project was a perfect afternoon activity for Mabel. She loved carefully threading the flowers, and I love that I will be able to use the dried marigolds in my dyepots this winter.
Rachel would like to give one of you a copy of her book as well! For your chance to win, leave a comment on this post. I will close comments and randomly select a winner on Friday.
The winner is Bethany, who commented, “I would love a copy of this book! I would also love to know what your own activity list includes if you ever were up for writing a post about that. :)”
I’ve emailed you, Bethany, and will hopefully write that post sometime soon!
Rachel says
We live in a community with several children and a large property and this book would be enjoyed by many. Thanks for sharing the giveaway possibility as well as the rumination about finding the appropriate balance, offering beauty to kids as well as grace to ourselves and others when we don’t meet our vision of the ideal
Elizabeth says
Love this! Thank you for sharing, definitely struggling with this! My oldest daughter is about to turn two, we have not allowed her to use any computers/tablets/phones since she is so young, but would definitely like to moderate TV time more.
Dawn Harris says
My children were essentially screen-free till my youngest was about 6 years old. We didn’t own a television so it was easy. Now, as they get older, we see a value to limited screen and we do enjoy occasional family movie nights. Like most things in life, it is about balance though balance can be tricky to find. I think I teeter back and forth more than I find the center sometimes! We’d love to add this book to our pot of ideas. Thank you!
Meredith says
Our rule of “screen time only happens on the weekends” went out the window about 3 months ago. I would love to win this giveaway!
Tliese says
This couldn’t be more true–screen time begets screen time! What a cool book.
Sarah says
What a lovely idea for a book!
Sheryl says
Screen time has been an issue at our house too. When the weather cooperates, we have been bike riding but not so much recently. And with online learning coming soon…yikes! I would love some new ideas!!
Lana says
The weather in the SE has certainly been a challenge this year and even us adults are on too much screen time. I would love to win a copy of this book for when our grandchildren visit. Maybe it would make me Super Nana. (Or maybe that next storm brewing out there will be Hurricane Nana.) I do not want to be a hurricane!
Meg says
I love everything about this concept. Hope I win it!
Rebekah says
I would love to have this book as a resource for my family, as I’m just starting Kindergarten with my oldest this year.
Devora Markovitz says
what a lovely looking book!
Dawn FP says
So very timely, indeed! I’d love to use this book with my kids & foster kids 🙂
Julie says
Oh! That would be perfect for my grandkids!
Katie says
Ooh, that book sounds lovely!
Therese says
I Will definitely try a flower chain with my soon to be four year old, thank you for the idea. I would also like to enter the contest if the book, it sounds lovely for both children and their parents.
Julia Garza says
I would love to win a copy of this! The days are very long, and I’m always looking for new ideas for my kiddos.
Stephanie says
Marigolds are such a happy flower. Thanks for the giveaway.
Helen says
For some reason this post made me think of things we (my brothers and I) did as kids on summer vacation trips (usually camping). One was to take twigs (short 4-6 inch) and find a pine tree oozing sap/resin and smear a glob on one end of the stick. Put in the water (lake) and it will move forward like a motor boat. We also had clam races (yes we had plenty of time). The lake at my uncle’s resort on Clam Lake, Wisc, had clams. We would each find one. Wade into the water and draw a line in the bottom, line up the clams (had to know whose was where) and leave them. Come back later (an hour?) and see whose was ahead…the Winner. Obviously simple pleasures.
Larissa says
Struggling for optimism and together off screen time here, would love a copy of this creative book!
Ellie says
The flower chain is beautiful! Those activities are the kind my children love and I have the hardest time remembering to help them happen.
Amy says
It sounds lovely and I understand what you are saying about the tension between screen time and “real-life” time, especially now. Thanks for the giveaway opportunity.