National Screen Free Week

April 30th through May 6th is National Screen Free Week from CCFC (Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood). According to CCFC, Screen Free Week is...

"Screen-Free Week is a national celebration where children, families, schools, and communities spend several days turning off entertainment screen media and turning on life. It's a time to unplug and play, read, daydream, create, explore, and spend time with family and friends." (CCFC)

One of my favorite blogs Teach Preschool has a great post about how you can do this with your family. Go read the whole post. She has a checklist to help you figure out just  how much technology is integrated in your life. You may not realize it because we just take it all for granted. It's amazing how easy it is for technology to enter our lives and how hard it is for us to do without it for even a short time.

Deb over at Teach Preschool has these suggestions for using the checklist.

How to use the Screen-Free Checklist with your child

1. Walk around your house or classroom and make a list of each item with a screen (television, computer, lap top, cell phone, toys, games, smart board…)
2. For each item on your list, help your child come up with a simple activity that he or she can do to replace the screen time (read a book, take a walk, build a block tower, paint a picture…)
3. Through out the week, refer back to the list and each time your child “turns off a screen” and “turns on life” – then give your child a check!

Note to Parents
Your child’s screen-free week will be more successful if the whole family will get involved. Make a checklist for the entire family to use throughout the week.

At the end of the post it sounds like she's going to give ideas each day of things you can do away from the screen. I'll definitely be watching because we REALLY need to do this at my house.