How many times have you heard, “Mooooom, I’m boooored!”? A hundred? A million? In our homes, the digital natives get particularly restless when their screen time is up. Next time you hear the refrain in your house, have the kids make an old-school fortune teller. Yep, the same kind you probably made during lunch in elementary school! But instead of filling it with predictions about who you’ll marry or what kind of house you’ll have, write in fun ideas of things to do.
All you need to get started is a square piece of paper. If you don’t have any origami paper laying around, just use a sheet from the printer. Grab a bottom corner and pull it diagonally across to meet the opposite edge. Crease the paper. You’ll be left with a band across the top. Fold that down, crease, and then trim it off. You’ll be left with a perfect square!
Before you start folding (we’ve got the instructions!), have the kids make a list of eight activities they enjoy doing. The only rule? Nothing can involve screens! Some of our favorite screen-free activities:
• Go for a bike ride
• Go to the playground
• Read a book
• Build a block tower
• Play in the sprinkler
• Jump rope
• Shoot some hoops
• Play catch
• Play hide and seek
• Play Four Square
• Play hopscotch
• Draw a picture
No doubt your kids will have plenty of their own ideas to add to the list! For more keep-’em-busy activities, check out our printable word games and puzzles. And if you feel like the whole family needs to cut back on screen time, check out our Screen Time Family Agreement.
