101 Offline Activities Book Review : Sweeties Reviews

Technology is an integral part of our daily lives and now our children are growing up with technology on the brain by the time they are 2. My granddaughter can use a Smartphone and tell you how to search on Google and she is only 4 and has never gone to school yet.

Because technology has taken over every breathing moment of the day it gets harder and harder to get kids unwired. Some would say that it doesn?t matter if kids just use technology to learn and play but I would say, and so do others, that kids need time to use their imagination. Technology is great and without it I couldn?t be writing this post but to have healthy kids I think they need balance in everything they do.

I received a copy of the book, 101 Offline Activities You can Do With Your Child to review. It reminded me of some of the things I used to do with my kids when they were growing up. They didn?t have computers, Internet or Smartphones so they had a lot of time on their hands. Boredom frequently set in when nothing great was on TV or the weather wouldn?t cooperate for them to go outside and explore the woods behind our house.

We used to make all kinds of craft projects, setup a neighborhood baseball card show in our basement and invite friends to come trade cards, and even do design obstacle courses in the driveway.

Steve and Ruth Bennett, the authors of this book, have put simple, fun, and easy activities for you to enjoy with your kids in a well laid out book. I like how they have used drawings for the index instead of a long list of topics in text format.

Here are some examples of offline activities from the book:

• Create a Big Newspaper
• In-Flight Map Game Pack
• Magical Mystery Machine
• Macaroni Math
• Kitchen Bowling
• Indoor Treasure Hunt (we used to do this at Christmas for the kids presents)
• Snork
• Sign Jumbles
• Pin the Food on the Plate

I?d say the only thing I don?t like about the book is the lack of color and a little too much text. The cover is so colorful and you open it up and not a lick of color can be found inside. If the goal is to get you to want to read the book to find offline activities I think they have to take in consideration the fact that most people have the attention span of a mouse. Nowadays you might have 5 seconds to impress someone and if you give them too much to read, like this post, you may just lose them. If the book had more photos of the steps you do to make the projects or play the game they are telling you about you might find more moms interested in getting their kids involved. You will find kids gravitate to pictures too.

The more pictures the better I say, maybe because I am a visual person and tend to skim over text. The same way they put the pictures in the index, they could have put picture instructions instead of so much wording with just a sentence under each one.

I do like how they make a short list of items you will need on each page, one drawing to show you what you will end up with and then put everything in categories like home, out and about, anytime or anyplace, in the kitchen, on the road, etc. They make it easy to use this book as a reference when you need a quick idea for something fun to do with your kids offline.

Editor's Rating:

Overall I?d have to say I give it a 4 out of 5 stars just because of the lack of color and lack of step-by-step pictures. Other than that, I think it is well designed book with thoughtful ideas for things to do and make with your kids that have nothing to do with computer, Smartphones or the Internet.

Disclosure: I received this book to review and was not compensated. I am reviewing for the Family Review Network and Steve and Ruth Bennett. What I wrote was 100% my own opinion.

Source: http://sweetiesreviews.com/101-offline-kids-activities-book-review/

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