This weekend my husband took our daughters on their fall Indian Princess campout. They left after breakfast on Saturday (actually Little Reader made breakfast for all 3 of them so my husband and I got to sleep in). She did this all on her own, which was a nice and much appreciated surprise. Granted it was just microwave pancakes and milk, but still, I got to stay in bed an extra 15 minutes - that's priceless :)
Little Man is doing pretty well on the eating front, but I had told him Friday night that that Saturday morning he would have to have some banana. He used to love banana baby food, for some reason he doesn't like real bananas. I told him that he could have the banana on a graham cracker with peanut butter (his favorite snack), but I wasn't going to play with him or have us do anything fun until he ate some banana. That may sound harsh but his feeding issues are purely stubbornness at this point so I have to be equally stubborn.
The good thing was I got a bunch of laundry and cleaning done while he pouted. Finally around lunch time, he caved, and ate it. After lunch we went back to the indoor playground. We got there at 2 and there was a birthday party scheduled for 3 which ended up being perfect. He played for an hour and once the party guests arrived we went back home. It was pretty warm out so we spent time outside playing and winterizing the yard.
That night after dinner I let him pick a movie. No big surprise he picked Cars. He's only seen it once or twice before and kept asking when Lightning was going to race. All that plot development and character building stuff wasn't very interesting to a 3 year old ; ) But once the racing started, he started cheering for Lightning. Then I had to explain why Lightning would choose to lose the race and help another car.
After I tucked him in I watched Scandal from Thursday night - one of the few shows I watch and one my husband isn't at all interested in. I started watching it cause of Josh Malina (David Rosen on the show). I always liked Josh on West Wing and Sports Night and so far am enjoying Scandal. I found out via Facebook that a friend of mine in 7-8th grade is his younger sister. You know what that means right? I'm 3 degrees from Kevin Bacon.
This morning, Little Man woke up around 745 a bit confused as his sisters usually wake up first and this morning the house was quiet. We had a quiet morning and the rest of the family came home after lunch. They were all very sleepy after staying up well past midnight but I could also tell that they were up to something when I helped them unload the car.
Sure enough when I came inside with a few last things from the car, they started singing Happy Birthday and had a cake and cards for me. My birthday isn't actually until Wednesday but Little Man has a Thanksgiving sing at school that night and next weekend my husband is on call, so better early than late :)
The rest of the day was spent catching up and getting ready for the week ahead, the kids all crashed pretty quickly after being up late Saturday night, which left my husband to catch up on his fantasy football and me to finish my book. A good mellow recharging weekend before the holiday craziness begins.
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Screen Time for children
I don't watch a lot of TV, but I am trying to really cut down my other screen time to set a better example for my kids. We don't have Wii or DSs and I don't have any real kid friendly apps on my phone or iPad. And yes, that's all on purpose. I'm a firm believer in the habits you gain as a kid (good or bad) stay with you forever. Or at least are very hard to break later.
I hardly ever watch TV during thr day. My iPod is always playing though as I do need some background noise. I let my kids watch one show a day (after homework is done and piano practiced). With after school activities 2 afternoons a week, it's not often that they actually get to watch a show.
Sometimes if my husband gets home early he'll turn the TV on and they may watch with him for a few minutes before dinner is ready. So what do my kids do when they have down time - they play, they read, they color. All thr things kids are supposed to be doing. Are there days I wish I had more time to focus on the things I need to do, of course but I would never give a 3 years old her own TV.
If so that's a little different. I mean don't you have different rules for an 11 year old than a 3 year old. You probably let your 11 year old walk home from school without an adult, would you let your 3 year old. Don't think anyone would say yes to that.
A while back a Facebook friend of mine posted that she was looking for a small TV and was hoping somebody had one they were willing to give away or sell cheap. Even though I dodn't have anything to offer up, I checked the comment section as I was curious why she wanted the TV. As I suspected it was to put in her daughter's room. Her daughter is 3 years old. WTF does she need a TV in her room for? Sure kids are more tech savvy these days. I'm sure she can figure out how to turn it on/off, change channels etc. But why? Yes, this particular kid does have a much older brother (I think he's 11), so maybe he has a TV in his room, and therefore she wants her own too? You know what my response would be, too bad he's older, maybe when you're his age you can have your own. Well actually, my 11 year old wouldn't have a TV in his room either.
A different friend recently posted asking for app recommendations for her 4 year old to use whole they were at activities for her 6 year old. Really? You know what I do with my younger ones (6 and 3)? If the weather is good, we go outside, if not I bring books, coloring stuff, paper to play games (dot game, hangman), if all else fails, we play ispy. I mean really most of these classes are 45-60 minutes. Are you telling me you can't interact with/entertain your kid for that amount of time? Ridiculous.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Screen Free Week
National Screen Free Week will be taking place April 30-May 6th. It used to be known as TV Turnoff week but given all the technology options that we all have these days, it's been expanded to include video games, computers, tablets and smartphones,
Due to various reasons, my daughters' school chose to have Screen Free Week two weeks earlier. A neighbor and I were asked by the PTO to organize school events for the week. Up until now I haven't done anything with the PTO, but with a second grader and kindergartner at the school, I figured it was time to volunteer for something, and I figured this was a great fit. I don't let my kids have a lot of screen time, as I expect them to do homework first, and prefer that they play, read, or do something creative rather than watch TV. I don't think all TV is bad, but I do believe that most kids get too much screen time, and not enough of the things I listed above.
One of the statistics I found on Screen Free Website states that according to Nielsen ratings, preschool children spend 32 hours a week with screen media. That works out to 4.5 hours a day!!!! When my daughters were in preschool they attended three mornings a week for a total of 9 hours a week, which around here is typical. According to that stat kids are spending 3.5 times more time watching a screen than they are attending school. That's crazy.
I know as kids get older it's tougher to limit screen time as they do have legitimate needs for computers to complete homework assignments, but like anything, if you set good habits from a young age, they will continue as they get older. I allow my kids 1 show (that they all have to agree on) after all homework is done. Most days it doesn't happen, as time often runs out after activities and homework and that's just fine by me.
Ok, time to get off the soap box. So what did we plan? Our only guidelines from the school were that people wanted something interactive. If you just have the kids come and watch a show, it's not that different from staying home to watch TV. We had a small budget but were lucky that most of our "vendors" volunteered their time.
Monday Night we had a fitness night. We had two yoga classes (split between younger and older kids) as well as a Tae Kwon Do demonstration including some students from our school as well as adults.
Tuesday we had story night and science night. For story night we reached out to room parents, senior readers, and community members - fire fighters, police officers, school district superintendent, and asked them to read to the kids for about 10 minutes (1 or 2 stories). We were overwhelmed by the response. We held the event in the school library and had the librarians preselect some books for readers, but also encouraged readers to bring their favorites. We ran the event from end of school til 8 pm and kids came and went as their schedules allowed. We took a break in the middle for story night. We had arranged for High Touch High Tech to handle the science portion of the evening. I had used them two years ago for my daughter's birthday party and they were great. They had two different instructor-led experiments for the kids to do - making silly putty and growing crystals. Then they had tables where the kids could play with tornado tubes, static electricity and flight. This event had our best turnout. Our school has about 650 kids and we had probably about 150 kids show up.
Wednesday was art night. A local art studio hosted an event for 3-5 graders. As mentioned above, my kids are younger than that so we didn't go, my co-chair did. This was also the night that the 5th graders worked on decorations for their "promotion party". I would have preferred we had also had an event for the younger kids, but by the time we learned that the art studio was planning their event for the older kids it was too late to add something.
Thursday was designated as Music Night as the 4th and 5th grade Chorus were performing in their spring concert.
Friday night we designated as family night, encouraging families to come up with their own screen-free activities. Partly because we figured if any families chose to attend all our planned activities, they would want a night off, and partly because we wanted to encourage families to come up with their own ideas.
Finally, we gave each student and activity log to track how they spent their screen-free time. We've asked each student to hand in their logs mid week next week and will award the class with the best participation with a lunch time party (date and theme to be determined). While we offered the activities I listed above, we aren't penalizing kids who didn't participate in our events, we encouraged them to go screen-free with family and friends instead. I'll be interested to see what the final participation will be.
I'm happy to say that my kids had no problem giving up their screens for the week, but I know from asking my daughters that some of their classmates had a harder time.
Due to various reasons, my daughters' school chose to have Screen Free Week two weeks earlier. A neighbor and I were asked by the PTO to organize school events for the week. Up until now I haven't done anything with the PTO, but with a second grader and kindergartner at the school, I figured it was time to volunteer for something, and I figured this was a great fit. I don't let my kids have a lot of screen time, as I expect them to do homework first, and prefer that they play, read, or do something creative rather than watch TV. I don't think all TV is bad, but I do believe that most kids get too much screen time, and not enough of the things I listed above.
One of the statistics I found on Screen Free Website states that according to Nielsen ratings, preschool children spend 32 hours a week with screen media. That works out to 4.5 hours a day!!!! When my daughters were in preschool they attended three mornings a week for a total of 9 hours a week, which around here is typical. According to that stat kids are spending 3.5 times more time watching a screen than they are attending school. That's crazy.
I know as kids get older it's tougher to limit screen time as they do have legitimate needs for computers to complete homework assignments, but like anything, if you set good habits from a young age, they will continue as they get older. I allow my kids 1 show (that they all have to agree on) after all homework is done. Most days it doesn't happen, as time often runs out after activities and homework and that's just fine by me.
Ok, time to get off the soap box. So what did we plan? Our only guidelines from the school were that people wanted something interactive. If you just have the kids come and watch a show, it's not that different from staying home to watch TV. We had a small budget but were lucky that most of our "vendors" volunteered their time.
Monday Night we had a fitness night. We had two yoga classes (split between younger and older kids) as well as a Tae Kwon Do demonstration including some students from our school as well as adults.
Tuesday we had story night and science night. For story night we reached out to room parents, senior readers, and community members - fire fighters, police officers, school district superintendent, and asked them to read to the kids for about 10 minutes (1 or 2 stories). We were overwhelmed by the response. We held the event in the school library and had the librarians preselect some books for readers, but also encouraged readers to bring their favorites. We ran the event from end of school til 8 pm and kids came and went as their schedules allowed. We took a break in the middle for story night. We had arranged for High Touch High Tech to handle the science portion of the evening. I had used them two years ago for my daughter's birthday party and they were great. They had two different instructor-led experiments for the kids to do - making silly putty and growing crystals. Then they had tables where the kids could play with tornado tubes, static electricity and flight. This event had our best turnout. Our school has about 650 kids and we had probably about 150 kids show up.
Wednesday was art night. A local art studio hosted an event for 3-5 graders. As mentioned above, my kids are younger than that so we didn't go, my co-chair did. This was also the night that the 5th graders worked on decorations for their "promotion party". I would have preferred we had also had an event for the younger kids, but by the time we learned that the art studio was planning their event for the older kids it was too late to add something.
Thursday was designated as Music Night as the 4th and 5th grade Chorus were performing in their spring concert.
Friday night we designated as family night, encouraging families to come up with their own screen-free activities. Partly because we figured if any families chose to attend all our planned activities, they would want a night off, and partly because we wanted to encourage families to come up with their own ideas.
Finally, we gave each student and activity log to track how they spent their screen-free time. We've asked each student to hand in their logs mid week next week and will award the class with the best participation with a lunch time party (date and theme to be determined). While we offered the activities I listed above, we aren't penalizing kids who didn't participate in our events, we encouraged them to go screen-free with family and friends instead. I'll be interested to see what the final participation will be.
I'm happy to say that my kids had no problem giving up their screens for the week, but I know from asking my daughters that some of their classmates had a harder time.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
2 Good Moments
I started this blog with the intent of keeping track of the cute/silly things my kids do so I don't forget them. It's been a while since I wrote about one, but this week I actually have two.
My daughter is the "VIP of the week" in her second grade class this week. They are supposed to bring in pictures of themselves and their family, their favorite book, and fill out a questionnaire about their favorite things. She filled it out well in advance but said that she was nervous about one of her answers - her favorite TV show, Dinosaur Train. I asked her why and she said that she was afraid all the other kids would laugh at her and say it was a babyish show. One of her best friends told her that she watched it when she was two and she thought it was a stupid show. For the record, that's impossible as they are 8 and the show is only 2 or 3 years old, and I told my daughter this.
Most of her friends like shows like iCarly and Victorious and other things I've never heard of. I don't let my kids watch a lot of TV so when they do I want them to learn something not just watch some mindless tween crap. Every now and then they'll ask about a new show and I'll watch it with them and decide if it's appropriate. Sometimes, I'm ok with it, sometimes not.
Anyway, I asked her if it still was her favorite show and she said it was because she likes dinosaurs and likes learning about them. My husband and I told her that your opinions are important and while it is important to respect other people's opinions even if you disagree, it is even more important to stand by your own beliefs and opinions. People will respect you more for standing strong rather than bowing to the common opinion.
Her day came and she stood in front of her class and gave her presentation, including saying that Dinosaur Train is her favorite show. Guess what, no one said a thing, good or bad. She admitted that she had been silly to be worried.
Ok, story number 2. I was changing my son's diaper the other day and as he was lying on the changing table, he said, "I pulled on the curtain, and it fell down, and I'm sorry." I asked him which curtain, and it was one on a tension rod hiding a storage closet in our basement. I thanked him for telling me, and told him I would fix it. I have to say I was surprised and proud of him. He'll be 3 in May so I wouldn't have expected to admit to wrong doing, especially when we were not even in the room where it had happened. It was an easy fix but I made sure to praise his honesty again to him, and when I related the story to his sisters and my husband. I'm a big believer in catching your kids being good.
My daughter is the "VIP of the week" in her second grade class this week. They are supposed to bring in pictures of themselves and their family, their favorite book, and fill out a questionnaire about their favorite things. She filled it out well in advance but said that she was nervous about one of her answers - her favorite TV show, Dinosaur Train. I asked her why and she said that she was afraid all the other kids would laugh at her and say it was a babyish show. One of her best friends told her that she watched it when she was two and she thought it was a stupid show. For the record, that's impossible as they are 8 and the show is only 2 or 3 years old, and I told my daughter this.
Most of her friends like shows like iCarly and Victorious and other things I've never heard of. I don't let my kids watch a lot of TV so when they do I want them to learn something not just watch some mindless tween crap. Every now and then they'll ask about a new show and I'll watch it with them and decide if it's appropriate. Sometimes, I'm ok with it, sometimes not.
Anyway, I asked her if it still was her favorite show and she said it was because she likes dinosaurs and likes learning about them. My husband and I told her that your opinions are important and while it is important to respect other people's opinions even if you disagree, it is even more important to stand by your own beliefs and opinions. People will respect you more for standing strong rather than bowing to the common opinion.
Her day came and she stood in front of her class and gave her presentation, including saying that Dinosaur Train is her favorite show. Guess what, no one said a thing, good or bad. She admitted that she had been silly to be worried.
Ok, story number 2. I was changing my son's diaper the other day and as he was lying on the changing table, he said, "I pulled on the curtain, and it fell down, and I'm sorry." I asked him which curtain, and it was one on a tension rod hiding a storage closet in our basement. I thanked him for telling me, and told him I would fix it. I have to say I was surprised and proud of him. He'll be 3 in May so I wouldn't have expected to admit to wrong doing, especially when we were not even in the room where it had happened. It was an easy fix but I made sure to praise his honesty again to him, and when I related the story to his sisters and my husband. I'm a big believer in catching your kids being good.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Off to a good start
This week's project is Super Bowl party prep. Ok, maybe that's cheating a little but I figure some parts of the house will get organized as a result. Case in point I took my husband's board certificate to be reframed today and will pick it up tomorrow - cross that off week 11.
I did my monthly Costco run and picked up some things at Bed & Bath, and took my son for a much needed haircut.
After picking up my daughter at school I did a load of laundry while the kids played. While my son took his nap, I did some cleaning - the kids bathroom top to bottom, and dusted and vacuumed kids rooms and our bedroom. All in a little over an hour. Not too bad. I figure if I wash all the floors upstairs tomorrow and do a quick clean of our bathroom I'll be done up there and can focus on the areas where people will actually be for the party.
The best part after all that boring stuff was I had time to sit with my daughter and talk about her day and help her with her homework will my son napped.
It was pretty warm today so the kids played outside for a little while before it got too dark. I took this picture while standing out there. It was actually a crescent moon, but I guess the iPhone camera does have its limits :)
Finally after the kids were in bed, my husband and I watched Alcatraz. I'm not a fan of science fiction or JJ Abrams but this has a pretty basic concept. When Alcatraz closed in the 60s and all the prisoners were transferred to other facilities, but the premise on this show is that they actually disappeared without a trace and are now reappearing in the present. Once you buy into that concept the rest of the show is kind of like Journeyman which I used to like but was cancelled after one season.
I did my monthly Costco run and picked up some things at Bed & Bath, and took my son for a much needed haircut.
After picking up my daughter at school I did a load of laundry while the kids played. While my son took his nap, I did some cleaning - the kids bathroom top to bottom, and dusted and vacuumed kids rooms and our bedroom. All in a little over an hour. Not too bad. I figure if I wash all the floors upstairs tomorrow and do a quick clean of our bathroom I'll be done up there and can focus on the areas where people will actually be for the party.
The best part after all that boring stuff was I had time to sit with my daughter and talk about her day and help her with her homework will my son napped.
It was pretty warm today so the kids played outside for a little while before it got too dark. I took this picture while standing out there. It was actually a crescent moon, but I guess the iPhone camera does have its limits :)
Finally after the kids were in bed, my husband and I watched Alcatraz. I'm not a fan of science fiction or JJ Abrams but this has a pretty basic concept. When Alcatraz closed in the 60s and all the prisoners were transferred to other facilities, but the premise on this show is that they actually disappeared without a trace and are now reappearing in the present. Once you buy into that concept the rest of the show is kind of like Journeyman which I used to like but was cancelled after one season.
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