Operation Playtime--Day One-Blocks

The website, Play-activities.com, is sponsoring 12 days of "unplugged" fun. Our kids are so plugged in all the time, the goal is to get kids to use their good old-fashioned imagination to have fun.

Today theme was "blocks". I am a little embarrassed to admit that at first, the only blocks I could find were our legos, but after searching around the basement I was able to find some old, seldomly used wooden blocks.

I put the blocks in the living room and then let the kids do whatever they wanted with them--no prompting from Mom.

The kids were impressed. Kimberly found all the geometric solid blocks and pretended to write on them with a cylinder shaped block. I asked her what she was doing and she simply stated, "writing stuff."
Gracie used some to make letters.

Luke, at three and a half, certainly enjoyed them the most. He built a "city" and then found a block person who had all sorts of adventures amongst the "buildings."

Mark, nine, who is our most "plugged in" child at home at the time, didn't do so much with them. This, sadly, is probably because of the amount of time he spends using electronics. He did build some towers with Kim and then commenced to destroy them with his new birthday light saber.

Grace, 7 enjoyed them for quite a while. After using just the blocks I found, she got out the Lincoln Logs and little lego people.

I have marked down for future reference to put Gracie's hair back before she plays with Lincoln Logs, though.

All in all it was an eye opening day. Most of the kids did spend about an hour playing until they wandered away, but I also realize that this type of activity should be done everyday to preserve the ability to entertain themselves.

I can't wait until tomorrow to see what the next Operation Playtime activity will be.