Yesterday and today we are trying to limit our electronic use. It has been great. I let the kids watch one or two shows but limit the video games for the older two. They have spent more time playing with each other and less time being zombies. It isn't easy during the summer when the days seem quite long but it has been nice. So today we went out and tried to make a homemade zip line. All we had was some rope and then Zach found a board that had a hole in it so we used that as our handle. They kids had alot of fun. Some of them got hurt but they got right back up to try again. It was cute. Even Mayah attempted. She kept saying, "I don't want to go fast". I was holding on to her until she was able to reach the ground.
Today we also started back up on our reading. I was doing it a little in Washington. We would sit all the kids down and read for 20 minutes. And today we all sat down (including myself) and read for a half hour. I love that Caleb will usually keep reading even after the time is up. The younger two that cannot read just flip through books and then I had some crayons and coloring books on the ground that they ended up doing after a bit. Rachel LOVES to read. She is doing amazing. She can really sound out some big words.
Caleb and Zach have been taking the scooters or the little tricycles out in front of our house in the road and riding them down the hill. Looks really fun. As long as they wear their helmets I don't mind. Our road is rarely traveled and I LOVE that. What a better way to spend time rather than on the Wii or PS2.
Gotta think of some more fun things for them to do outside. We don't have a trampoline or any outdoor play equipment so we have to use our minds and figure things out on our own.
We weeded the corn the other day and will have to work on the potatoes soon. The storm that hit last night made a lot of our corn lean.
Tonight we went out on the porch and were surprised at how many fire flies we saw. WOW. I knew we had them but just didn't realize how many. Don's comment was "who needs Christmas lights". They were in the trees and it was the coolest thing. Then Zach saw a bat fly by. The kids chased it to see if they could see where it went. No luck. I think we will have to try catching the fire flies. Don told me he used to do that as a kid but I am not sure how to go about doing that. They only light up for a second. So how in the world do you see them if they are not lit up? HMMM....we may just have to try this.
We weeded the corn the other day and will have to work on the potatoes soon. The storm that hit last night made a lot of our corn lean.
Tonight we went out on the porch and were surprised at how many fire flies we saw. WOW. I knew we had them but just didn't realize how many. Don's comment was "who needs Christmas lights". They were in the trees and it was the coolest thing. Then Zach saw a bat fly by. The kids chased it to see if they could see where it went. No luck. I think we will have to try catching the fire flies. Don told me he used to do that as a kid but I am not sure how to go about doing that. They only light up for a second. So how in the world do you see them if they are not lit up? HMMM....we may just have to try this.
If you have any cool ideas on other things to keep the kids busy BESIDES the electronics let me know. We have our chores that we do but we are needing some more things.
2 comments:
That's awesome about the zip line! Our neighbors in Bountiful had one and it was so much fun!
Good luck with the cutting back on electronics! What I found when we went through our de-tox of electronics is that although the days seemed rather long when we first started... now the days just fly by and we don't even miss any of the movies etc. and I really don't know how that happened. So it does get better! The kids have also learned more ways of being creative and we do a lot of crafts. I also do a lesson from the nursery manuel and we bake alot and do science experiments or exploring the greater parts of northern VA or DC area. But mainly our time is spent outdoors playing. I remember our first day sans electronics it seemed like it would never end as watching movies etc. tends to make time go by faster it seems. But it is worth it, I know from experience. So good luck!
ps. are either of your girls interested in Fairy type things? My girls sometimes don't play a lot on our outdoor equipment but something that is fun for them is building fairy houses or gardens. Your local library might have some books on this for kids as it really is fun and helps encourage use of imagination! My girls like to act out plays (music included) outdoors and mainly Benjamin, well he just likes to dig in the dirt :) And like I somewhat mentioned before, the summertime is a perfect time for those outdoor science projects (the library has some great books for that too).
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