Life with less of our tech friends

***Life with less of our tech friends***

Virtual learning blues are everywhere these days....We are all trying our best to really GET it. When the lockdown first started those zoom calls with teachers were always fun.... Kids looked forward to those calls and would get excited to see some familiar and friendly faces. However, now zoom classes are much longer. Kids have to complete their work and show their teacher everything they are learning. More homework and so many ways of participation.

My 7 year old Zoha started grade 2 and grade 2 is a BIG grade according to her 3 year old sister. We need to give Zoha more milk, lots of fruit snacks and freezies so she can feel energetic in class (seriously, I am not sure who made her in charge of our nutritional well being 🤣)

The teacher asks one question each morning that allows the kids to say any two things that they can think of.... Today she asked “so if we have no Tv, no computer, iPad or cell phone in our homes...what can we do with our time?”....I was sitting in the room with Zoha while she was taking her class. I stopped and put my phone down on the side table next to me and I started to look at Zoha’s room.

I love the colors she chose for her room, I love her bed and how neat she always keeps it, and then I noticed the carpet that we replaced upstairs getting loose in some areas so I need to make that phone call to the flooring people we hired...oh need my phone again! Okay I'll just wait and let this phone rest. I started to look around again...her little desk and chair is so cute, love amazon shopping. It’s a blessing to us mom’s with little kids, isn’t it? And that reminds me I need to order Zyva’s friends birthday gift 😨.... Okay phone no I am not going to bug you yet.

I left Zoha’s room and went to get my daily planner from the kitchen. Came back and started to write down things I needed to do... then I heard a kid’s response. He said oh umm we need screen so we can eat our meals 🤣. I don’t think the teacher heard him and I don’t even know if zoha did lol but I had to try and not laugh out loud. We really do rely completely on our phones for everything. Staying in touch with people, shopping, reading, and ordering food. I even use my MacBook to write all my stories and groceries ...just about everything is done through our phones, laptops, and iPads.

So this week I planned a fun activity with my girls. Zoha is 7 and Zyva is 3, we made a plan to be technology free daily for 2 hours. We made a list with mutual consent of things that we can do without our phones, TV, iPad, Alexa, Google, and all our virtual friends in the house 😨. If we get Carried away- we get a blooper coin, and if we complete the whole two hours without any whining and singing the “I am bored” song we get to chose our own dinner. It can be M&M's with rice, an ice cream sandwich, or some fruit. The blooper coin will add another half hour to no screen time 🤔 and no one wants that!

Here is the list we tried making- (current pandemic does make it a little tough)

But, you have no excuse not to try it!

Things to do as a family without technology

1. Cook dinner together.

2. Read books

3. Puzzles

4. Take a walk.

5. Have a backyard picnic.

6. Hula hoop practice

7. Take a bike ride.

8. Look through old family albums together.

9. Play hide and seek.

10. Bake cookies

11. Visit a friend in drive by style.

12. Go outside and take family photos

13. Make a meal and surprise a neighbor.

14. Make a chalk picture in your driveway.

15. Make pizza from scratch.

16. Rake an older neighbor’s lawn.

17. Play miniature golf.

18. Play a game of hockey.

19. Play a board game

20. Try some food you’ve never had before.

21. Build a snow or leaf fort.

22. Hike through the woods.

23. Shoot some hoops.

24. Play a game of Charades.

25. Do a family art project.

26. Make a family breakfast.

27. Make a care package for your local hospital.

28. Roast marshmallows.

29. Plant a garden.

30. Take a family trip to the zoo or museum.

31. Take a fishing trip.

32. Build a birdhouse or bird feeder.

33. Clean house and donate items

34. Heave a treasure hunt.

35. Plant a tree.

36. Fruit picking at local farms

37. Go to the beach.

38. Call grandparents

39. Gather flowers and make an arrangement For mommy

40. Paint a picture

So far this is what we have and we are very excited! Hope this makes a great family bonding and also a gives us a refreshing break from the must haves of this era. Amen.

Sadia Khan

Mommy of Z kids