Our kids have enjoyed a big mix of outdoor activity this year including biking, roller blading, hiking, running, playing soccer, snowboarding or just playing at a park.
But there are some times when we all appreciate a bit of “down time” whether in our home or in the car. We are not big proponents of screen time, but we do allow them to geek out or zone out a bit sometimes.
My kids know that I have a distinction between “mindless games” and those that I feel are a bit more “productive” or educational.
A few of the ones that are “mom-approved” (and kid-approved) are:
And we also let the boys get on Minecraft with their buddies sometimes and watch a couple shows on Netflix.
Otherwise, when they want to get online, we really encourage them to spend time posting on their blog or learning new things by searching for answers to any questions they have.
Currently, we have two iPad minis and two Macbook Air’s. We love them, but I feel like we are often one device short! Now that the kids are reading more from the Kindle App, practicing typing, emailing or posting more to their websites, we often have to vie for computer time.
We also manage their curriculum and schedules on intranet sites in the cloud, so they can look at their lists from any device. Google Sites or Evernote are wonderful places to keeps daily and weekly lists and relevant links that the kids can access easily. As they are growing older, they are becoming so much more independent, and so it’s nice when they can get their school day started right away.
A lot of these things would be the same, whether we were traveling or not, but I do feel like that because of the wonderful attributes of technology, we can travel and keep learning from anywhere.
