Fun Activities to Help You and Your Family Unplug for the Weekend

Technology is fantastic in so many ways, but it is also quite addicting. Sometimes we simply have to pull the plug and do something fun with our families. Kids nowadays spend a LOT of time in front of devices. When they’re not e-learning, they FaceTiming with pals, playing online games, streaming videos, or making TikTok videos.

Here are fun activities to persuade your children — and everyone in the family – to put down their electronic gadgets.

Benefits of Unplugging

It is critical to provide time away from technology, especially for younger children. Among the advantages are:

• Eye health is very important. Blue light emitted by screens is harmful to our eyes and can disrupt our circadian sleep cycles. Simply put, staring at a screen all day, every day is bad for our eyes, especially for children!
• Physical exertion. Even before the lockdowns, more than half of all children in the United States were not receiving enough physical exercise. With lockdowns in place and students missing out on their normal extracurriculars and PE, we must actively arrange a time to sweat every day.
• Coordination and imagination are required. Nothing replaces physically playing and building with your imagination and hands. Unplugged activities will foster the development of new hobbies and talents, as well as collaboration, tenacity, and problem-solving abilities.

Unplugging Activities

1. Family Games

Hold a family game night using a board, card, dice, or any other type of game. If you’re looking for some games to help you improve your abilities, here are five suggestions:

• Geography bingo
• Crossword puzzles
• Jenga
• Before and after
• Brain Games

2. Reading Challenges

Working together as a family to achieve a task fosters cooperation, dedication, and goal setting. Making it a reading challenge has the added benefit of pushing your children to become better readers. Set a reading goal and a deadline for yourself. Keep track of your progress and celebrate your accomplishments.

3. Bringing Books Back to Life

Bringing books to life is an interesting approach to engage with tales. Allow a book to inspire your family to do art, commit an act of kindness, cook a meal, or attempt a new activity. Acting out a book is another fantastic method to bring it to life. As you both disengage, there is another opportunity to foster creativity and imagination growth.

4. Reading About Your Favorite TV Show

Even if your family has disconnected from online games or tv shows, you may still read about them. There is a plethora of books available for young readers on things such as Minecraft and Pokemon.

5. Creative Projects

We all enjoy receiving packages in the mail. There is an increasing number of subscription kits on the market that include books and tasks for your families to work on.

6. Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are an excellent way to redirect your focus away from devices and onto the world around you. They are readily adaptable to your immediate surroundings, your children’s ages and interests, and may even involve active learning.

Here are some unplugged scavenger hunt ideas and tips:

• Depending on your surroundings, have your children go on a quest throughout the house or apartment, the yard, or even the neighborhood.
• For younger children, center the hunt on categorizing and arranging related things, such as those of a certain color, texture, or form.
• Make it more difficult for older children by having them look for more obscure items, such as a certain model of automobile or a house with unique windows.

7. Obstacle Courses

Obstacle courses tick all the boxes: they’re entertaining, stimulate creativity, and will keep your child engaged both cognitively and physically. You can make an obstacle course out of anything! Here are some pointers:

• Include trivia questions or puzzles – only when those mental activities are done can you go to the next challenge. (This is especially useful if you have a little amount of room.)
• If you have a lot of space, aim to expand out the challenges as much as possible and promote other modes of transportation besides walking and running.
• Make your own obstacle course and challenge your entire family to complete it. You may also make it a relay with teams if there are enough participants.

8. Fish Farming

This activity can be strenuous, especially since it does take up a lot of time and resources to manage. However, it does help with getting away from your screens on the weekends and evenings. Children are also fascinated by little fish moving around and would be interested in helping you out in caring for the fish. However, do not allow children in a fish farm unsupervised.

For this, you might need a cage fish farming pontoon for accessibility and organization.

9. Make a Play and Act it Out

 

With stay-at-home orders in place, your youngster is most likely wishing they could be anywhere but at home right now. Allow children to express their emotions and ideas by having them create and perform their own play!

Writing and presenting a play allows your child to take control of a project from start to finish while also allowing them to showcase their creativity. Allow your child to create a play on whatever they choose, or give them a stimulus to start their creative juices flowing.

The Bottom Line

Whether it’s on the weekend, or in the evening after work and school time is up, unplugging helps a family take the time to get to know each other, and rejuvenate their creative juices. Do take the time to go through the activities mentioned above and if you like something, get creative and make it all that better. Happy unplugging!