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By Mom Unplugged, April 19, 2008 9:19 am

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:

• Read
• Do art projects
• Play outside
• Play imaginary games with each other, or by themselves
• Build with Legos, Knex, or blocks (especially my son) and then create imaginary games
• Dress-up (also leads to imaginary games)
• Play board games either with each other or with me
• Do puzzles
• Write stories (my 2nd grade daughter)
• Play with the cats and dogs

Here are some suggestions and elaborations that might inspire you and your children. If anyone has any other ideas, then please comment!

• We are fortunate to have a great backyard and a swingset…plus a big forested area next door. If you are less well-endowed in the yard department or live in an apartment, then there is always a visit to the park, or playing at a friend’s house, or having a friend over.

• Be tourists for a day. How about a trip to local attractions such as zoos, aquariums, parks, or playgrounds that you might not have been to yet. Think about tourist attractions that you and your children might enjoy. I don’t know about you, but when I live someplace, I tend not to visit all the attractions for which that location is famous!

• Art Projects: you can always search the old Unplugged Projects (the category is: “Unplugged Project” of course!)

• Bring out some board games and have a family game night. My advice for preserving your sanity: try to pick a game that your children like, but that is not deadly boring for the adult participants. (ie. stay away from Candyland - that one sends me into an immediate coma)

• Turn on some music and dance (again: pick something you like too or you’ll go crazy!)

• Try a Kids Cook Night. Pick a recipe that your kids might not ordinarily like. I find that if my kids do the the cooking themselves (with supervision of course), they are more likely to enjoy the meal.

• Listen to a radio play for kids. Jens Hewer, creator of the Adventures of Billy Brown, recently contacted me about his wonderful series of radio plays. These are more than just books on tape. They are fully produced children’s radio plays, a format that has apparently been popular in Germany since the 1970′s. My review is coming soon, but in the meantime, you can download one of Billy’s adventures for free at his website, Giddio. There are also free Billy Brown pages to color. Perfect for Turnoff week and great imaginary fun for kids!

• Volunteer with your kids (especially if they are older). Habitat for Humanity, your local animal shelter, nursing home, or soup kitchen would probably love to have you help out for a day…plus you’d give your children a bit of perspective and teach them the good feeling that comes from helping others.

• Wash the dog, or teach him tricks.

• Take a walk around your neighborhood, or be adventurous and go on a real “nature hike!” Check out these sites for more outdoors/nature-related ideas: Backyard Nature, Green Hour

• Teach your kids to knit, crochet, embroider, or french knit…or learn one of these skills together.

• Visit these sites for more TV-free ideas: Bubblegum Books, Center for Screen-Time Awareness, Instead of TV

• When all else fails…bring out the Mommy I’m Bored Box.

Comments (18)

By Mom Unplugged, April 13, 2008 9:33 pm

I confess that when I picked the theme food for this week’s Unplugged Project, I had potato stamps in mind. I have never tried stamping with potatoes and have always thought it sounded fun. But we got so into it, and since I was cooking pasta for dinner, we tried a few pasta stamps too!

Here are the materials:

First I asked each child what they wanted for a stamp. I told them to keep it simple! My daughter wanted a moon and a star. My son wanted a spiral.

These sounded manageable so I cut a potato in half and began carving using a box cutter to draw the initial outline on the potato, and then a kitchen knife to cut away the unneeded portions. Since my children are only 7 and 5, I did all the cutting (although my 5 year-old son would have loved to have gotten his little hands on the box cutter!):

This can be a bit tricky. The star lost a point and became a rather lopsided four pointed star. I lacked the mental energy to really figure out the spiral, so it became a mushroom. My son didn’t mind. My advice: keep it simple (especially at first) and use potatoes that are as firm as possible. Ours were a bit old and soft. That’s my excuse and I am sticking to it!

I blotted the stamps with a paper towel to remove the excess moisture. Using a paintbrush, we then painted the stamps with paint and printed pictures and patterns on card stock. The kids made cards for their friends. I just had fun.

Then I got adventurous and decided to try a roller effect. I peeled a whole potato and carved a rectangle on two sides, and more of a square/dot on the other two to create what I hoped would be a cool rectangle-dot-rectangle-dot pattern when rolled across the paper. I painted the rectangles blue, and the dots yellow, then rolled it on the card.

We all thought that the final result looked great! Final photos show this card.

After this success, I was really into this stamping thing and found some dry pasta in my pantry with interesting textures (I was cooking pasta, so pasta naturally came to mind). I used a rotini (twisty corkscrew pasta) and a penne (a tube with small ridges) to make a few more cards. The penne was subtle, but made a nice grass effect. The rotini was fun and drew “oohs and ahs” from my children. There are so many different pastas out there, I suspect that at sometime, you might see some more pasta stamping at Unplug Your Kids!

Here are the finished cards. First the kids’ cards for their friends:

And mine. First my potato cards (the one on the left was created with my “roller potato!”):

And then my pasta and potato cards. The blue, widely-spaced lines are the rotini pasta. The green grass is penne pasta.

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If you did the food Unplugged Project with us this week, then please link to your project post in Mr. Linky below. If you didn’t join in this week, but would like to, we’d love to have you with us! Simply read about how the Unplugged Project works, and jump right in.

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Next Monday’s Unplugged Project falls right on the first day of TV-Turnoff Week. What a dilemma! Since I actually post my weekly project Sunday night before I go to bed, I guess I am OK (I might not be quite as prompt a visitor though). But for those of you who like to do the project and post on Monday, if you are participating in the TV-Turnoff Week Blog Challenge you are faced with having to sit it out, do it early or late, or do a quick Monday post. I’ll leave that decision up to you and plan a project for next Monday anyhow.

The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project is:

Scissors

This is in honor of Michie who has been longing for a scissors project for quite some time now!

What can you create with scissors? If your little one is too young for scissors, then you can do the cutting and your baby can do the creating! Remember, even one tiny snip “counts.”

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For those who did the food project this week, here is Mr. Linky:

Comments (0)

By Mom Unplugged, February 29, 2008 8:41 pm

What makes your pre-school or elementary-aged child shine?

“Bubblegum Books is asking kids to write about – or even draw – their most creative ideas for doing fun things during the week of April 21–27, 2008 [TV Turn-Off Week]. Submit fun and educational ideas about ‘what makes you shine.’ It can include an activity, person, adventure—or even something imaginary.”

Reminder: Deadline for the Bubblegum Books/TV Turn-Off Week Contest is March 14th.

For more information, please read my post: An Unplugged-Contest! “Show Your Shiny Side” or visit the Bubblegum Books contest page.

The contest is based on the book Something Shiny, Something Round, by Julie Goulis and illustrated by John Ferguson.

NEW INFORMATION: Bubblegum Books welcomes homeschoolers!

“Homeschoolers can definitely join in the fun too. The contest is open to all elementary-aged and pre-school aged children. Just specify what grade level your child is. Prizes will be awarded by grade level. Where it asks for school phone/address, etc., just include your home information. The organizers of TV-Turnoff Week and Bubblegum Books work with a lot of schools, so the form is probably geared more for schools. We hope you’ll be able to enter and show what makes you shine when the TV is off.

- Brad Hauber - Bubblegum Books”

So don’t forget…March 14th is the deadline. And if you win something, please let me know!