Technology-free activities for kids

Plant a Garden

lanting a garden can help even young children develop character and virtues such as patience, responsibility, and initiative. Children can take pride in what they’ve been able to accomplish and see it, hold it, smell it, and even eat it.

Gardens are a lot of fun and can really help a child identify with reality with tangible rewards for their efforts. There are a few things to be aware of when planting a garden. For one, not all vegetation is suited to all environments. When you’re considering what to plant, think about where your garden will be. Will it be in full sunlight, partial sunlight, or shade? If you are planting in your own backyard, plan out where your garden will be. If your backyard has little shade, then your choices are limited to vegetation that requires full, direct sunlight.

Growing with potters or planters are a bit easier to maintain, can be decorative, and they’re movable in most cases. Potters come in different sizes so you can even have very small potters to use with your children. If you are going to plant your garden in your backyard, you’ll need to section off an area to use. It doesn’t have to be large at all. The area can be as small as a 3 x 3 ft. area. But before you begin planting, you’ll need to remove the grass and weeds.

Needed Equipment:
Potters/Planters
Potting Soil
Spade
Gardening Gloves
Watering Can
Seeds

For backyard planting:
Shovel

For potters, fill the potters till the dirt is 1-2 inches from the top. Most seeds are only buried a mere 1-2 inches underneath the soil. If you are planting small flower plants, you can probable add more seeds to the soil, however, if you plan to plant edible foods, your plants will need more space. Use your pointer finger (or your child’s) to make a 1-2 inch hole in the soil and drop in the seed. Cover it up and water it. After a few days, the seed should produce a shoot also known as a seedling and from there, with consistent watering, your plants should be on their merry way. Your child should know to water the plants every 2-3 days or when the top soil is dry. But caution that overwatering the plants can damage their plant.

Chalk

Needed Equipment:

Chalk

Coloring outside on the ground has always been a favorite childhood pastime. You and your child can doodle on a large scale, play hopscotch, tic tac toe, and draw your favorite characters.

GROUP GAMES
Red Light – Green Light
This is a fun activity that requires only three players.
Needed Equipment:

Players
How to play: one person pretends to be the stop light.
The rest of the children have to make it to this person and tag them. But, they can only run towards the “stoplight” says “Green Light”.

When the “stoplight” says “Red Light”, everyone must stop moving and the “stoplight” will turn around. If any children are discovered moving when the “stoplight” turns around, then they are out. If everyone is out before they reach the “stoplight” then the “stoplight” wins.

At the start of the game the children line up a good 15 to 20 feet away from the “stoplight”.

The “stoplight” faces away from the children and says “Red Light” or “Green Light”. The person who makes it to the “stoplight” now gets to be the “stoplight”.

Charades

Charades is packed with fun and the best thing about it is that any age can participate. You use only your body to communicate a word or phrase.

Needed Equipment:

Paper Strips

A Marker/ Sharpie

Score Keeper with pen and pad

Fill the paper strips with different actions, animals, or phrases. Here’s an example of good Charades material:

Lizard

Baseball Catcher

Baseball Pitcher

Walk a Dog

Sweep

You may even try harder words like rug, couch, or characters from popular shows such as King Kong, Tarzan, zombie and the like. One person can make all the words or everyone can join in. You can give your players 5 sheets of paper each and let them write the words to act out. Once you have all that in place, add all of these into a hat, and make sure that no one can see them as they draw out a slip of paper. When choosing words, it's a good idea to keep them to short phrases or titles that are familiar to everyone in the group to ensure that gameplay is optimal.

Also, there are a few categories actors can signify to help players get their bearing:

Quotations: this is usually communicated by using fingers of both hands to make quote signs.

Movies: It’s signified by having one hand to your eye as those looking through a camera lens, and using the other hand to crank is make believe old fashioned camera.

Books: It’s communicated by holding your hands in front of you, placed together. Then you open them as though you were opening a book.

Songs: Signified by moving your hands out from your mouth somewhat similar to the flow of sound coming from the mouth.

TV Shows: It is communicated by the index fingers and thumbs forming a small rectangle almost similar to a TV box.

Now you’re ready to play. The first person will draw a strip of paper from the hat and begin acting it out at which point the audience is free to start shouting out their guesses. To help the audience along, the actor can wiping their head or fanning themselves to signify that the guesses are getting warmer. If the audience's guesses are going the wrong way, the actor can shake their head or shiver as in the guesses are getting colder. When the audience has guessed part of the word, point to them to let them know that they are on the right track.