Blogs Your calendar has been cleared for the foreseeable future. You can’t come within 6 ft of any human. It has taken every bit of effort you have to get out of your jammies today. Your state has cancelled summer as you know it. I joked with my Teaching Channel colleagues ,who are also parents, that we would need to watch Little House on the Prairie reruns to find ways for our kids to have fun in the face of no organized group activities. You find yourself staring at your children as they utter the unconscionable words…”we’re bored.”(sigh)
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for my children, they have parents who are educators, and they have 2 sets of grandparents who are educators. When we (all) try to explain that boredom is actually really good for their brains, the rolled eyes and blank stares indicate that their brains are still in the post-zombie phase.
Creativity is the hero we all need. Right now.
Like so many other children, mine have an extra appendage known as an iPad, (related in some ways to the Kindle). It’s used for school, but also for things that are not-school: games and videos, for example, and not necessarily in moderation. To embrace the digital natives our kids are, we have some thoughts on using technology to strengthen creativity skills, so that kids can become creators instead of consumers.
Below is our curated list of ideas and apps to broaden “screen time” as we know it. There are so many ideas to get kids creating- with technology!
Turning “Screen-Time” into “Create Time”
- Re-direct Minecraft lovers to design a castle from a story used in class (complete with flying hot dogs), a backyard play area, or even a new school for the child’s classroom family
- For TikTok:
- Record exercise videos for grandparents who are also stuck inside
- Record your response to a viral (not COVID) dance
- Create your own TikTok dance meme
- This blog post discusses active (rather than passive) ways to use technology
- Seesaw has great features for kids to show what they know by creating
- Teaching Channel course 804: Consumer to Creator: Coding and Kids uses coding as a way for students to ignite and boost their creativity.
- For many other ideas, Common Sense Video has a list of the best creative apps!
