Category Archives: Nature

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Beauty in Decay

When the calendar turned to April, two weeks into the shelter-in-place order that had become the new normal, I decided to take a break from work and leave the house for something other than a walk around my neighborhood or the weekly trip to the market. I would visit one neighborhood over, and I would drive.

Simply starting the car and backing it out of the garage were revelatory activities, behaviors from another life. There was my winter coat, in the back seat, where I’d left it. There were my notebooks and reusable grocery bags. I briefly rolled down the car window to breathe the fresh spring air–and then wondered if I should put it back up in case I ran into a neighbor from whom I was unable to stay six feet apart. I felt skittish driving, anxious about any encounters.

I drove to a stand of tulips I knew from over the years to be in front of a neighbor’s house. To my disappointment, they were largely gone. True, great splashes of color remained, among the thicket of bare stems. But they were frail and bent, far past peak, sun shining through their delicate crevices.

I was disappointed, of course. I’d stayed inside my house, in my neighborhood, for two-plus weeks and missed the whole show. Now I had the proverbial setback of having to “wait until next year”. I parked and walked over to the flowers anyway.

From close up, I could see the erratic, faded petals, frozen in mid-curl, the pistils and bits of pollen. The midday sun exaggerated the tulips’ veins where petals met stems.

The flowers were beautiful and dying and somehow fitting for this time. They fit the grief I had felt in the car, the grief and awe from merely being in a different neighborhood, a neighborhood right next to my own, where I used to go all the time and which now seemed newly fraught with danger in each set of approaching footsteps, as people walked around me with dogs or on phones, and kids skateboarded in the empty streets. Even as the April sun blazed and the world appeared especially peaceful.

I became absorbed taking pictures, something I used to do avidly at least weekly, often more, which I hadn’t done in almost a month. It felt good to be out in the world, even if still in my small corner of it. Even if the whole world had changed.

As I continued to shoot, new layers of decrepitude revealed themselves, my lens ever closer, as if I might be saved, at least momentarily, by focusing on increasingly small things that were within my control. A particular rotting husk, a translucent colorful thread, the way a curve of a petal could recall a woman’s scarf. In noticing those tiny things, for a devoted period of time, the world slipped away just a bit.

If we’re lucky, we live most of our days without thinking much about life’s fragility, about our own mortality, yet lately those things had become foremost in the news and in our minds. In the flowers, those ideas were made visible, yet also hopeful–even in their decay, the tulips were majestic, and even they would ultimately be reborn.

Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman

Take the F: An Appreciation

In his New Yorker essay Take the F, Ian Frazier describes life in his Brooklyn neighborhood and building, before relaying the story of a neighbor who had taken ill. While she was in the hospital, the whole building was “expectant, spooky, quiet”.
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The neighbor finally returned, pale but on the mend. In celebration, Frazier “walked to the garden, seeing glory everywhere.” He “took a big Betsy McCall rose to (his) face and breathed into it as if it were an oxygen mask.”
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read this essay 25 years ago, and I still think about its life-affirming qualities often. I look forward to once again surrounding myself with roses, like these in the Sonoma (CA) Plaza, captured during the fullness of May.
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What do you look forward to?
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The Nightly Howl

Italians, under siege from coronavirus, began taking to their balconies and windows, at an appointed hour each night, to serenade one another with their national anthem. It was a show of solidarity, something to provide uplift in these brutal times. Residents in Chicago followed suit, singing a city-wide version of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer. In Dallas, people sang Bill Withers’ Lean on Me in unison. In Brussels, Seattle, New York, Medellín–in places all over the globe–people started standing on balconies and doorsteps and clapping to applaud health-care workers, often at 8 p.m., local time. The phenomenon even spawned a hashtag: #solidarityat8.

In Mill Valley, CA, we have the Mill Valley Howl. Started a week after shelter-in-place orders, the Howl has grown to a citywide cry at 8 p.m. each evening, when cooped-up residents open their windows or go out onto their front yards, decks and streets, and howl at one another into the night. It’s an amazing show of solidarity, of a kind of momentary community joy, while at the same time evincing something more primal. I hear anguish in the Howl. I hear prayer (or perhaps I feel it, looking up at the bright star of Venus, while we’re all baying into the twilight.)

From my house, the Howl seems to start low in the valley and swell and run through the neighborhoods and canyons and up into the hills. It takes on different shapes in its few short minutes, before dying back down. Dogs and perhaps actual coyotes join in. I howl back at the noise and my neighbors’ lit houses. I howl to thank the first responders on the front lines. I howl to mark the days of this strange time. In a town in which people are temporarily sequestered in houses that are largely tucked away from view, howling lets others know, distinctly, “I am here. And I see (or at least hear) you.”

The Howl suits this place, at the edge of the wilderness, the same way operatic versions of the national anthem suit Italy. A howl is a call of social pack animals. We’re bonding with each other as we mark our territory–this territory, this moment–we’re here in our houses, we’re here on the planet, we’re with one another, alone and yet together.

Photos: Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, Suz Lipman; Public Domain

Tips for Families During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Coronavirus is changing the lives of everyone on the planet. In addition to impacting day-to-day lifestyles and habits, cancelling large events and closing schools, the health crises is making many aware or newly aware of our interconnectedness and dependency on one another for health and safety.

This time may be particularly challenging for parents: School, job and other routines are disrupted, and it can be difficult to strike a balance between managing our own needs and anxieties with those of our kids. We’re also, by necessity, having to slow down and get creative with the way we’re spending our time.

Try these tips to help you get through.

How to talk to kids about Coronavirus

How to Talk to Kids and Teens about the Coronavirus

Tips on How to Help Kids Feel Safe and Manage Stress

Tips for Teaching Kids Media Smarts during Breaking News

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Tips for staying healthy

How to Protect your Family From Coronavirus

Hand Washing: A Powerful Antidote to Illness

How to Make your own Hand Sanitizer

8 Best Ways to Keep Your Family Healthy (anytime)

Fun stuff to do at home 

12 Ways to Celebrate Screen-Free Week

10 Ways to Learn in Your own Backyard

18 Ways to Unplug as a Family

8 St. Patrick’s Day (or anytime) Science Experiments for Kids

9 Ways to Enjoy Nature in Winter

Take Part in Citizen Science

Slow Nature: Have a Cloud Race

It’s in the Cards: Card Games and Card Reading

12 Famous Museums that Offer Virtual Tours

Extensive List of Online Resources for Anyone who is Bored at Home

At-home Learning

Covid-19 and At-Home Learning

Schools are Closing for Coronavirus. Now What?

How to Get More Talking, Reading and Singing into your Child’s Life

Free Educational Apps, Games and Web Sites  from Common Sense Media

PBS Fun and Educational Family Activities  (games, apps, crafts)

Dealing with stress in general

CDC: Managing Anxiety and Stress (for self and parents)

5 Ways to Overcome the Stress of Coronavirus

How School Closures can Strengthen Your Family

We Will Emerge from these Times as Heroes (and the importance of letting kids play)

Meditation for Beginners

Meditation Apps for Kids from Common Sense Media

I wish you good health, stamina and calm.

Photos: Public Domain, Susan Sachs Lipman (last photo)

Stepping Away from Routine to Find Increased Awe

Many faiths and cultures observe the Sabbath, or Shabbat, a day of rest that is separated from the other days by intention and consciousness. Sabbath/ Shabbat can result in a heightened sense of awe and connectedness, which is aided by the act of stepping away from the norm. Far from a period of deprivation, Shabbat is meant to be joyous, relaxing and pleasurable. It can be a wonderful time to connect with family or self; nature, food, art or beauty.

This week we experienced a super blue blood moon lunar eclipse (pictured). Special cosmic events are certainly occasions that induce true awe. Sabbaths, or any conscious break, allow us to slow enough to let wonder in, even during weeks without a lunar eclipse. In reading about the holiday, I found this quote from Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a prominent Jewish philosopher and professor of Jewish mysticism.

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder almost necessarily declines … Mankind will not perish for want of information, but only for want of appreciation. The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. – Rabbi Abraham Heschel

This is another beautiful quote from Rabbi Heschel, which comes by way of Rabbi Michael Lerner, Jewish activist and spiritual leader:

(Shabbat) is, Heschel once said to me, greeting the world not with the tools we have made but with the soul with which we are born; not like a hunter who seeks prey but like a lover to reciprocate love.

This quote speaks to me about the heightened sense of respectful communion with all beings and phenomena that can come from stilling our minds and bodies. It’s about co-existence, rather than dominance, which in turn prods the ability to appreciate beauty and wonder all around us.

But, why should we care about awe? In addition to providing pleasure, awe produces a host of spiritual, cultural and personal benefits, say the folks who study awe at the Greater Good Science Center. These range from personal discovery to increased altruism and improved health. And, even though religious traditions offer a pathway to awe, wonder and discovery can happen anytime, if we borrow from those traditions and create sabbaths, or time-outs (even mini ones), for ourselves.

Photo: Public Domain

Geminid Meteor Shower: How to Watch One of the Year’s Best Sky Shows

Now playing overhead: The dramatic Geminid Meteor Shower, which astronomers agree is one of the best of the year. And this year, there will be very little moonlight to obscure it, as happened when a full moon shone an unwelcome spotlight on August’s Perseid Meteor Shower earlier this year.

The Geminid Meteor Shower is forecast to peak Dec. 13-14, between midnight and 4 a.m., your local time, streaks visible in the sky (given good weather conditions), from about 7 p.m. local time until dawn. The best show will take place over North America, but Southern Hemisphere folks should be able to see some meteors as well.

“The Geminid meteor shower is the most intense meteor shower of the year,” says Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office. “It is rich in fireballs and can be seen from almost any point on Earth.”

Read more about the Geminids on the NASA site, including where to stream the show, if your local weather isn’t cooperating.

What is a meteor shower?

Meteors occur when the Earth passes through streams of dust and debris from ancient comets which have entered the Earth’s atmosphere. (When the comet has flown close to the sun, its dirty ice evaporated and that, in turn, caused the comet dust to spew into space.) Scientists believe that the Geminids actually come from an asteroid, called 3200 Phaethon, which is really the skeleton of an extinct comet. The Earth passes through this particular debris stream each December, and is said to originate near the constellation Gemini.

How to watch the Geminid Meteor Shower

The Geminids should be visible with the naked eye in North America and perhaps in other parts of the world. Sky watchers in cold climates should bundle up, grab a chair (ideally one with some neck support), and perhaps a blanket, head outside where you can see the largest patch of night sky possible (with as little city light as possible), and look up.

Because meteor showers last for days before and after the projected peak, be sure to scan the skies during the surrounding days, if you can. This time of year, clouds can obscure the Geminids on the peak day.

A thermos of hot chocolate is a great accompaniment for the Geminids.

This shower has been getting stronger every year it’s been recorded, going back the the 1860s. It could be “an amazing annual display”, according Cooke of

This American Meteor Society page is a great site for exploring more about the Geminids and where and when to see them in your local night sky.

This movie of the 2008 Geminids comes from a space camera at the Marshall Space Flight Center:

Watch the Geminid Meteor Shower

 

Photos: Public Domain, American Meteor Society

Solar Eclipse Viewing and Fun for Families

Since ancient times, solar eclipses, like the one due over North America on August 21, have inspired fear and wonder. Ancient people in what is now Asia and the Middle East thought that an eclipse indicated the attack of a sky or sun god, and made loud noises or created offerings to scare and appease whatever was threatening their god.

Today, that fear has been replaced by awe, the feeling of being in the presence of something larger than ones self. We often experience awe in the natural world, and during the unexplainable or communal. Perhaps the 2017 solar eclipse will involve all of the above! (Awe and its many benefits to the human spirit have been explored by The Greater Good Science Center.)

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon moves between the earth and the sun and temporarily blocks the view of the sun. The 2017 solar eclipse will be the first total solar eclipse visible in the continental U.S. in 38 years. Read more about how eclipses work.

If you’re ready to create some awe and memories of your own when the solar eclipse occurs on August 21, check out these links:

How to view the eclipse safely and what to expect, from Space.com

An animation that shows exactly what the solar eclipse will look like from your zip code, from TIME.com.

NASA’s Total Eclipse Site, which shares how to view the eclipse safely, lots of great educational and geographical information, eclipse activities, and citizen science opportunities that allow you to be a scientist for a day or longer, and help NASA study the eclipse.

How to make an old-school pinhole eclipse viewer, from Washington Post.

9 facts about the solar eclipse, from TimeandDate.com.

Jacquie at KC Edventures shares eclipse snacks, reading and citizen science activities that you can engage in, even after the eclipse.

Mrs. Plemons Kindergarten offers terrific space-themed projects for kids, so you can keep excited and learning about science.

Easy eclipse foods to make or buy, from Today.com

For adults, this list of eclipse-themed drinks (moonjito, anyone?) from Food Network will surely inspire your celestial cocktails.

However you celebrate the 2017 eclipse, remember to view the eclipse safely. I hope you’ll also make some memories, get in touch with your awe, and stay connected to science.

Photos: Time and Date, NASA, Mrs. Plemons Kindergarten

 

7 Ways to Play in the Mud on Kids to Parks Day

When my daughter was in pre-school, we used to rejoice when she came home with dirty feet. Sand between the toes? Yes! Caked-on mud? Bring it on!

Why? While we weren’t necessarily enamored with long scrubbing sessions in the bathtub (though those were fun, too), we knew that muddy feet–and fingernails and knees–meant that profound play was happening. We since learned that dirt can even be good for your health!

The 7th annual Kids to Parks Day, Saturday, May 20, is a national day of play. You can register for one of more than 1,200 events around the U.S. and join the fun, get out with your family and friends, and win prizes at the height of spring.

You can also enjoy Kids to Parks Day, or any kids-to-parks day on your own, in your local playground or park. Here are a few suggestions for creating some memorable, and maybe a little muddy, experiences.

… Before you head out, don’t forget to grab some good sports shoes that are rugged enough for play; affordable enough that you won’t be afraid to let your kids wear them outdoors; and ventilated, washable and drainable for those times when a little mud happens, or is even sought out. These are from Kids to Parks Day sponsor, Northside USA. (Keep reading for a giveaway featuring Northside USA Shoes!)

Make a Mud Pie or Garden Soup

The perfect kitchen may be outside! Find dirt or sand and a water source and pour batter-like mud into used measuring cups, pans, cupcake and pie tins, and pails. Decorate with leaves, petals and rocks. Or pour water into cups and bowls and add flower petals, food coloring or glitter inside to make potions and soups. Make a bench or a tree stump your cooktop, and “bake” away without any of the typical kitchen clean-up.

Read more from Jackie at Happy Hooligans (where these fantastic photos come from):

Garden Soup
Mud Kitchen Activity

Adopt a Flower and Watch it Grow

Do you often return to the same park or garden? “Adopt” a flower for the season and watch it grow over time. Bring a ruler or yardstick or measure it against your own body. Have space at home to plant a flower? Get some large seeds that little hands can tuck into the dirt, and plant easy growers like nasturtium, pea, beans, sunflowers or gourds. Growing edibles? You might want to sing this song:

Dirt Made My Lunch

Dirt made my lunch,
Dirt made my lunch.
Thank you Dirt, thanks a bunch,
For my salad, my sandwich
My milk and my munch ’cause
Dirt, you made my lunch.

Read more:

Beginner’s Guide to Getting Your Garden Growing
11 Ways to Make Gardening Extra Fun for Kids

Make and Sail a Paper Boat

This is a timeless idea that we got from our friend, Curious George, who made boats from the newspapers he should have been tossing on his paper route. Make your own paper boat and sail or race it in a creek or other body of water. Some of these boats have strings attached, so they can be launched without actually sailing away.

Play Pick Up Sticks or Pooh Sticks

The original pick-up sticks were ancient fortune-telling devices, but you can play this game anywhere, indoors or out, without even attempting to see the future. Hold your sticks in a bundle, then release them so that they land in a pile. Take turns trying to remove one stick at a time, without disturbing any other sticks. When a stick from the pile is disturbed, the next person takes a turn. When all the sticks have been removed from the pile, players total either their number of sticks – each one is worth one point. Near a creek or stream? Try your hand at Pooh Sticks, a stick-racing game inspired by Winnie the Pooh.

Build a Sandcastle or Make Sand Art

It isn’t officially spring until you get some sand between your toes at a beach park or sandbox. Pack the wettest sand you can find into mounds to make castles or carve them into other designs.

Decorate your creations with flags, or twigs, shells or other found objects.

Raise your own tadpoles

What better way to explore the cycle of life than to raise tadpoles and then release the frogs back into ponds and streams? Kids won’t soon forget this fun project. Looking for more pond activities? Try making a collecting cattails, making a water scope, or one of these other activities for a day at the pond from KCEdventures.

Photos: Rainy Day Mum, KCEdventures

Explore a Tidepool 

When the ocean recedes, the mysterious undersea world is revealed, and creatures like barnacles, crabs, periwinkles and sea stars can be seen if you walk among them gingerly. Read how and where to explore tidepools and how to preserve tidepool habitats for the enjoyment of others.

See more photos from our trip to the tidepools.

How will you play outside on Kids to Parks Day?

Register to be counted on Kids to Parks Day and you may win one of many cool prizes, including a special camping package from The North Face (4 sleeping bags, tent, and duffel bag), or one of the additional prizes from CamelBak (family hydration pack), Eastern National (Jr. Ranger package including a park pass for a whole year), and National Geographic (a set of kids’ books about nature and parks). How great is that?

Plus, every person who signs up will receive a special promo code from Northside Shoes. Keep checking the list of Kids to Parks Day events as we get closer to May 20th. There are new park events added each week!

… And, remember how I mentioned the importance of having shoes you can feel good about wearing for mud and other outdoor play? I’m giving away a pair of Northside Shoes! To enter, take the pledge to play outside on Kids to Parks Day Saturday, May 20, and then leave a comment here, telling me that you pledged and how you plan to play outside. If you have a favorite mud-play activity, I’d love to hear about that, too. The giveaway will end Friday, May 19, 11:59 p.m. PST. A random winner will be chosen. The winner must reside in the U.S.

Good luck!

Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman, Public Domain, Happy Hooligans, Rainy Day Mum, KCEdventures

12 Ways to Celebrate Screen Free Week

Screens! They dominate many of our lives, often to a greater degree than we wish. While many of us parents can attest to the addictive nature of technology, we struggle with ways to reduce it in our children’s lives.

 

It is perhaps a bonus, then, that the wonderful Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has proclaimed May 1-7 to be Screen-Free Week. Sometimes this kind of added incentive is all we need to inspire us to action. More than once, parents have told me that their children’s favorite memories include episodes of family game nights by fire- or candlelight during power outages. You can create your own “power outage” by participating in Screen-Free Week. And, even if you don’t go completely screen-free, you might want to pledge an hour or so a day or night to have some good screen-free fun. Who knows? That fun might just become a habit or your own favorite family memory.

Here are 12 ways to celebrate Screen Free Week:

Make a Paper Boat and sail it in a creek, pond or bathtub.

Make a Bird Feeder. Our local birds have gone nuts for ours and we plan to make more.

Make easy Wreaths, Crowns and Baskets to celebrate May Day and spring.

Enjoy Loom and Finger Weaving. You can do this anywhere!

Keep a Moon Diary as a way of observing the night sky.

Slow your pace and have a Cloud Race.

Get a jump on summer by making S’Mores. Camp under the stars if it’s warm enough.

Start a Backyard Garden.

Bake your own Soft Pretzels. These are really easy and fun.

Play a different fun board game every night. We like Boggle, Sorry, Taboo, Pictionary, Scrabble, Mancala, Masterpiece, Monopoly and Hi-Ho Cherry O.

Discover The Joy of Quiet.

And, if you’re really missing your screen? Make your own Shoebox TV!

You’ll need:

Shoebox or a square-shaped box and lid
Cardboard tubes, from paper towels, foil or plastic wrap, or wooden dowels
4-10 pieces of printer paper (8 ½ x 11”)
Drawing materials
Scissors, craft knife and tape

Cut a large opening for the TV screen into the bottom of the box, leaving an even border of 1” or more all around.

Holding the box horizontally, cut two holes on the top, each about 2” the side and 2” back from the cut-out section. Your dowels or cardboard tubes should fit into the holes.

Cut two bottom holes that line up with the top ones.

Cut the cardboard tubes, if necessary, so that about ½ “ sticks out on the bottom and 1-2” on top.

Decide on a story you want to tell that primarily uses pictures.

Place the paper horizontally (cutting, if necessary, to fit the tube length) and draw one picture on each page, adding words, if desired. Leave at least 1” on each paper edge and at least 2” on the left edge of the first picture and the right edge of the last picture.

Lay the pictures out, left to right, in the order they will appear. Turn them over and, keeping the order, run a piece of tape down each back seam where two pictures come together.

Tape each end of the paper story scroll around a tube or dowel and roll on the back sides of the scroll, so that the paper image is at the front of the tubes and the paper is tight and sized to the box.

Place the tubes into the holes and place the lid on the back. Decorate the front of the TV, if desired.

Gently turn the tubes to make the pictures move.

Slow Tip: You can also use images from magazines or comic-books to create your story.

You can make multiple story scrolls and change them through the back of the box. In doing so, you’ll join nearly every ancient civilization in telling stories using scrolls, starting with the Egyptians, who created them on papyrus.

The Shoebox TV craft is adapted from Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World, which contains 300+ more ways to enjoy screen-free family fun.

You might enjoy these related posts from Slow Family Online:

Eight Fun Things to Do While It’s Still Summer

Six Fun Family Activities to Enjoy This Weekend

Hooray for Low-Tech Toys

Here are some more ideas for screen-free from Parents Place:

18 Ways to Unplug as a Family

Graphic: Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman

Give Tech a Rest: It’s National Day of Unplugging

When I speak to families about slowing down and enjoying family time, one of the things that comes up over and over is screen time. Those shiny screens dominate many of our lives, often to a greater degree than we wish. While many of us parents can attest to the addictive nature of technology, we struggle with ways to reduce it in our and our kids’ lives.

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Cell phone resting in its sleeping bag

It is perhaps a bonus, then, that Mar 3-4 (sundown-sundown) is  National Day of Unplugging. Sometimes this kind of added incentive is all we need to inspire us to action. More than once, parents have told me that their children’s favorite memories include episodes of family game nights by fire- or candlelight during power outages. You can create your own “power outage” by participating in National Day of Unplugging. Who knows? This might just become a habit or your own favorite family memory.

Here are 12 things to do while the power is out:

Make a Paper Boat and sail it in a creek, pond or bathtub.

Make a Bird Feeder. Our local birds have gone nuts for ours and we plan to make more.

Make easy Wreaths, Crowns and Baskets to celebrate May Day and spring.

Enjoy Loom and Finger Weaving. You can do this anywhere!

Keep a Moon Diary as a way of observing the night sky.

Slow your pace and have a Cloud Race.

Get a jump on summer by making S’Mores. Camp under the stars if it’s warm enough.

Start a Backyard Garden.

Bake your own Soft Pretzels. These are really easy and fun.

Play a different fun board game every night. We like Boggle, Sorry, Taboo, Pictionary, Scrabble, Mancala, Masterpiece, Monopoly and Hi-Ho Cherry O.

Discover The Joy of Quiet.

And, if you’re really missing your screen? Make your own Shoebox TV!

You’ll need:

Shoebox or a square-shaped box and lid
Cardboard tubes, from paper towels, foil or plastic wrap, or wooden dowels
4-10 pieces of printer paper (8 ½ x 11”)
Drawing materials
Scissors, craft knife and tape

Cut a large opening for the TV screen into the bottom of the box, leaving an even border of 1” or more all around.

Holding the box horizontally, cut two holes on the top, each about 2” the side and 2” back from the cut-out section. Your dowels or cardboard tubes should fit into the holes.

Cut two bottom holes that line up with the top ones.

Cut the cardboard tubes, if necessary, so that about ½ “ sticks out on the bottom and 1-2” on top.

Decide on a story you want to tell that primarily uses pictures.

Place the paper horizontally (cutting, if necessary, to fit the tube length) and draw one picture on each page, adding words, if desired. Leave at least 1” on each paper edge and at least 2” on the left edge of the first picture and the right edge of the last picture.

Lay the pictures out, left to right, in the order they will appear. Turn them over and, keeping the order, run a piece of tape down each back seam where two pictures come together.

Tape each end of the paper story scroll around a tube or dowel and roll on the back sides of the scroll, so that the paper image is at the front of the tubes and the paper is tight and sized to the box.

Place the tubes into the holes and place the lid on the back. Decorate the front of the TV, if desired.

Gently turn the tubes to make the pictures move.

Slow Tip: You can also use images from magazines or comic-books to create your story.

You can make multiple story scrolls and change them through the back of the box. In doing so, you’ll join nearly every ancient civilization in telling stories using scrolls, starting with the Egyptians, who created them on papyrus.

The Shoebox TV craft is adapted from Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World, which contains 300+ more ways to enjoy screen-free family fun.

Here are some more ways to unplug as a family from Parents Place:

18 Ways to Unplug as a Family

You might enjoy these related posts from Slow Family Online:

Eight Fun Things to Do While It’s Still Summer

Six Fun Family Activities to Enjoy This Weekend

Hooray for Low-Tech Toys

Graphic: Parents Place, Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman

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