March 1 / Activities + Thoughtfulness // Tangrams, Boredom Inventory, and More!
You'll be surprised by how much fun kids can have with painted cardboard.
Hello! This month’s technology-cautious challenge is probably the most intimidating for the whole year, especially if you’re a work-from-home parent. How on earth do we get through the day without giving our kids screens?
You might be surprised by how much easier your kids are to deal with when they’ve had a detox from screens. That isn’t a promise, but, well, try and see. If your kids increase their attention span and don’t need as much stimulation or quite so many dopamine hits, they will probably be better at playing independently and finding ways to keep themselves busy. If they’re able to read, they’re especially in for a treat. And so are you.
We’ll share some unplugging tips below, but first, here’s a great activity that can keep your kids busy for hours and hours regardless of their age, and it costs nothing.
Cardboard Shapes and Tangrams
Cardboard shapes and Tangram puzzles are a super fun way to spend time, and making your own sets is a big part of the fun! It’s very empowering for a kid to be able to say “I made my own toy” and then spend hours and hours playing with it.
For younger children, set up an area where they can paint, and simply cut pieces of cardboard into shapes for them. Let your kids paint the shapes as they choose. They probably won’t take long to dry. You might be surprised by how much your kids will love painting cardboard 😅
Once dry, invite your kids to make designs however they see them. Your 4-year-old might come to you beaming with pride at her Cupcakerocket, or your 1-year-old might stuff a cardboard triangle in your mouth and say “Pizza!” (Both are true stories.)
If they’re having trouble getting started, help them out! You can make a doll in a fancy dress with nothing more than a circle, triangle, and two rectangles. Design a birthday cake, make letters of the alphabet, etc.
Older kids of all ages can enjoy tangrams, a dissection puzzle originating from China that took the world by storm in the 1800’s. There are at least 6500 “problems,” or shapes that can be made with the seven original shapes.
We tested multiple methods of making our own tangram sets, and the easiest was to print out a template, glue it to cardboard, and cut along the lines. (The folding-paper method works too, however.)
We made a PDF for you with one big template and two small templates, as well as some solutions that your kids can do with their sets.
Kids who want more of a challenge can race each other or time themselves, or you can find problems online that are one solid color so you have to try to figure out how to arrange those shapes.
Tangram Channel has a wealth of good ideas; we bought their printable set of 252 puzzles for $6.50. And even though we’re all trying to avoid screens, tangram videos don’t count, right? 😉 Medium-difficulty means you use two tangram sets, and advanced means you use four sets. Can you believe they made an Eiffel tower?
Our kids had a total blast with cardboard shapes and tangrams at their respective skill levels, and it’s super fun for grownups, too. Tangrams were all the rage in the 19th century for good reason. This puzzle is addicting, fun, and practically limitless.
Boredom Inventory
In yesterday’s newsletter, we talked about making a Boredom Basket for when you’ve put your phone down in the evening and you’re not sure what to do with yourself. Kids are more likely to bored during the day, and little ones need a little more than knitting needles and a good novel to keep them occupied.
So here is a tip for figuring out what to do for screen-free fun: make a boredom inventory. Go around your home and see what books, games, activities, etc. are underutilized. That kinetic sand they wanted so badly for Christmas…have they played with it in awhile? How many times have they solved that solar system puzzle? Have they found Waldo on every page? Unless you’re a perfect minimalist, there’s probably some stuff around your house that can be archived onto a list.
As G.K. Chesterton said, “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.” There is great value in boredom and we will talk about that at another time, but suffice to say for now that it’s not worst-case scenario for a child to lack entertainment. It’s okay to give them time to be curious and use what they have.
Some Stuff You Could Buy
However, you might not be prepared for them to not have screens. Here are some things we think your kids might like:
Watercolor sets with nice paper (this set has watercolors, brushes, and a watercolor pad)
Board games and card games with a great replay value such as Sleeping Queens, Catan Junior, Bananagrams Wildtiles, Clumsy Thief, Disney Eye Found It, Mancala, Chinese Checkers, etc. Pick games you want to play with your kids. If you think Candyland is an annoying game to play, don’t play it. You can find games that your whole family will enjoy.
If you can find Lil’ Woodzeez or Calico Critters on Facebook marketplace, go for it. The little animals in particular are excellent for open-ended play. You don’t need to buy all the houses and accessories; encourage them to make a whole Woodzeez village using repurposed items and Legos, magnetic tiles, or whatever they have.
Readalouds! Don’t forget that the library is free 😉 (We can give more tips on readalouds later.)
You can find some great activity books for cheap on Bookoutlet.com, even Usborne books! (Yep, most of them are under $5.)
Act of Thoughtfulness: Make Someone Else a Set of Tangrams!
An older person in particular might appreciate doing tangrams alongside your kids. Have your kids make spare sets to give away!
Hopefully you found some ideas that were helpful in this newsletter! We’re cheering you on in this endeavor. You can always go back in the Family Scripts archives and try an activity from an earlier week!
Thanks for reading!
Warmly,
Hope and the Family Scripts team
Screens (just TV, we don't allow our kids access to any devices) became too big of an issue when our kids were super little (1 and 3) so we just did away with it. We have pizza and movie night on Fridays (self-explanatory) and usually watch another movie together on Saturday night but otherwise, we just don't turn on the TV. I have no problem with this, I'm not a TV person; my husband watches TV after the kids are in bed. After maybe two weeks of initial detox from that, it has never been an issue again. They don't ask to watch TV, they don't even think about TV -- we just have other things to do in our lives. (The exception to this is being sick -- if you're sick, all TV rules go out the window 😊 And the other exception is needing some sensory input, in which case they do Cosmic Kids yoga, but that's usually only if they can't go outside.)
It's also worth mentioning that we spend most of our time away from our home -- my husband and I are at work, the children are at school and then daycare for a little bit. If we were home all day, or even part of some days, I have no doubt our TV rules would be different.