Having Fun Without A Screen
Tips from your Bucks County Student Assistance Program
Screen Time
Tips and Tricks
- Discuss with your children why screen-free time is important
- Commit as a family
- Establish helpful routines
- Set limits and stick to them; Use timers when necessary, give count down warnings and take devices away
- Set tech-free family time
- Help your kids find something to do
- Reward good choices
- Ask for help if needed
Below are a variety of activities to help spark the fun of screen-free time.
Scroll down to see ideas for all age groups
Preschoolers & Elementary School Aged Kids
Bubble Foam
Make with just 3 ingredients!
-(Tear Free) Bubble bath or Dawn Dish Soap
-Water
-Food coloring
Cloud Dough
3 Simple Ingredients:
-Corn starch
-Baby lotion
-Food coloring
Rice & Beans Sensory Play
Put rice or beans in a bin. Add trucks, cars, cups, shovels, etc!
Bathtub Snow Play
Fill your bathtub with buckets of snow
Use as much snow or as little snow as you want
Add cars, trucks, shovels, etc
(Option: Add food coloring)
When finished, turn on the water/shower and wash away
Paint Rocks
-Collect rocks from outside
-Paint them
-Let them dry
Musical Chairs
- Play the music and have the players walk around the perimeter of the chair circle.
- When the music stops, everyone must immediately sit in a chair.
- The one person left standing it out.
- Remove another chair and continue until only one person is left.
Stay at home bingo
Ball Toss
Use ping pong balls and shoot the balls into the buckets
Outdoor Hopscotch
Color
Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Shape Hopscotch
Cut out different shapes and play hopscotch
Sensory Walk- Footprint Handprint Activity
- Trace one handprint and one footprint. Use that as a template to make several pairs of footprints and handprints. Tape down to colored paper. Make a gross motor game by placing your hands and feet on the paper.
Walk The Line
Paper Plate Toss
- Take a paper towel roll and tape to the floor. Cut out inner circles from various paper plate sizes. Do a paper plate toss.
- How many can you get in in how many seconds/minutes? Make it more challenging by scooting further back!
Fizzy Eggxperiment
-Fill a bowl or tray with baking soda
-Open each egg and put food a drop of food coloring inside
-Cover the food coloring drop with baking soda
-Pour vinegar into the eggs that you have filled with food coloring and baking soda and watch them burst!
Dance Parties
Easy Baking Recipes For Kids – Basic Pantry Ingredients
Tweens and Teens
Learn to Knit, Crochet or Finger Weave
With Finger Weaving all you need is the yarn!
You can make beautiful and useful creations like a scarf.
Create a Scavenger Hunt
There are some good ideas here.
Do Oragami
Spruce Crafts has some beginner projects you could try out.
Bake Something
Plant a garden
Do a Puzzle
Teach a Pet
Practice a New Hair Style
Mail a friend a letter
Learn a card trick
Make Clay and Craft Something
Make a Cardboard Box Robot
The idea can be found here.
Look for a Job or Volunteer
Learn to Adult
- Yard Maintenance
- Change a car's tire or oil
- Cleaning a house properly
- Budgeting and finances
- Income taxes
- Health appointments and navigating insurance
Plan a Meal and Make it
The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc.
The Pennsylvania Student Assistance Program (SAP) is a systemic team process used to mobilize school resources to remove barriers to learning. The primary goal of SAP is to help students overcome these barriers so they may achieve, advance, and remain in school. As representatives of the Bucks County Drug and Alcohol and Mental Health systems, Behavioral Health liaisons will provide on-site consultation to SAP teams as well as provide support to families and students with substance use and/or mental health related concerns.
Website: councilsepa.org
Location: 4459 West Swamp Road, Doylestown, PA, USA
Phone: (215) 230-8218
Facebook: facebook.com/TheCouncilSEPA
Twitter: @TheCouncilSEPA