Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Powerless

School is out!! Fewer routines, no more crazy Wednesday afternoons, no homework or permission slips, no lunches to make or feel guilty about not making. And oh yeah--and extra kid to entertain all day long every day. Hmmm.

My goal this summer is to use the TV and computer to entertain the kids as LITTLE as possible. Which means that I have to have a plan. A good plan. A plan full of fun things to do that will take more than 30 seconds to complete. A plan that the kids will want to participate in and that can entertain a wide range of ages and attention spans. (And don't even try to guess who has the longest attention span. We're probably both wrong.) Does this sound daunting to anyone else but me?

So, I'm trying to come up with a list of things that we can do together that don't require power (i.e. electricity). Hopefully that will keep us away from screens of all kinds for the majority of our days. I'll list a few here, but if anyone has any more to add, I could really use some ideas.

1. Reading (during the daytime we don't have to use lights to do this)
2. Hook up the hose--sprinkler not necessarily required
3. Begin a pen-pal relationship between the kids and their cousins
4. Visit the playground 1/2 block from our front door
5. Bike rides
6. Gardening--harvest everything I've planted so it doesn't go to waste this year
7. Playdough (it takes electricity to make, but we're not counting that--just because)
8. Mess around with craft supplies--see what we can come up with
9. Puzzles
10. Make our own musical instruments
11. Write with pen/pencil and paper--there's still something magic about this to me
12. Feed the ducks that have taken up residence in the canal

Obviously, this list won't get me through the whole summer. But it's a start. Here's to a mostly powerless few months--and hopefully some sanity left at the end of it.

No comments: