This past week was Scree-Free Week and we had all agreed to stay off any screens for seven days. We all realized very fast that this wasn't going to work. It worked for us in the past, but not this year. The television and video games were easy to keep off, it was the internet that wasn't! We kept finding ourselves "needing" to get online. Adrienne needed to do research for her current essay, we found ourselves wanting to look things up for our Canadian History, and there were many more occasions!
We did watch one documentary, Babies. We had been waiting our turn at the library for this one for a long time!
Babies is a great documentary. We all really loved it! It was a great tie-in for our World Geography study, seeing the living conditions of the African baby and the Mongolian one, compared to the Tokyo and USA. Here is a trailer. We were able to get this from our local library, so check yours too!
The rest of the week was uneventful. We completed our regular subjects.
In World Geography, we are now studying India. In Canadian History, we are now in the 1970s!
I will be taking a break from blogging for a while. I have always told myself that when blogging becomes "something I have to do" instead of "something I enjoy", I would give myself a break from it. I feel this way about blogging right now. Spring is a time when I want to be outdoors more, enjoying our beautiful weather and nature with my children.
Book Sharing Monday will be on hold, but I hope you continue posting on your own blogs. There are many (126 at last count!) Book Sharing Monday posts I have written, you can visit previous ones here.
I will be back soon, hope you will have a fun-filled time too!
This used to be called "TV-free Week", but since 2010 the name changed to "Scree-free Week". The idea is to have a week without any screens entertaining us. No TV, video games, movies, computers, itouch, etc... This year, Screen-Free Week is from Monday April 18 to Sunday April 24.
Our family is participating this year. We have all agreed to allow 3 minutes to check our e-mail daily, since our Air Cadets need to check that week's newsletter in this manner. We also don't want to worry about missing any important messages related to work, extra-curricular activities, or homeschool field trips. Three minutes a day is plenty to quickly check new e-mails and take care of them. The rest of the week will be scree-free completely.
This blog will have Book Sharing Monday post automatically published on the Monday (I will write it on the Sunday before). I will be late writing our weekly wrap-up post, it won't be written or posted until the following Monday or Tuesday.
There are so many activities a family can do that doesn't involve a screen. If the weather permits, we are planning on enjoying the outdoors a lot. Biking, walking, planning and working on our garden, chalking on our driveway, etc.. Inside, we have lots of things we enjoy doing together or seperately as well: painting, reading, playing board games or cards, playing with dolls, legos, and more. It will also be a regular school week for us.
You can find many ideas for scree-free activities by googling. Here are a few links I found interesting:
Ideas that I came across that inspired me (in no particular order or organization!):
start a vegetable, herb, or wildflower garden
play with marbles
set up a basket of drawing supplies and paper and rotate each day (1 day markers+thick paper, next watercolour+paint paper cut in an interesting shape, crayon+colouring pages)
start a book reading marathon
sort through toys and donate unwanted ones
start a large puzzle together
start an Earth Day project
sew something together
make friendship bracelets
play hide and seek (still one of my kids' favourites, especially at night!)
go bowling
cook together
There are so many ideas! Let me know if you are participating in Screen Free Week too by leaving a comment to this post and share some of your ideas for activities too!
