Nature Kids: One Way Not To Watch TV
This morning Immy was nagging me to watch a favourite show, ‘Dirtgirlworld,’ but as she had just watched her morning episode of Playschool, I said no. There was lots of whining and attempted cajoling as a result and I decided to use one of my favourite parenting techniques to diffuse the situation … distraction 🙂
If you don’t know Dirtgirlworld, the title character, Dirtgirl, explores the natural world of her extensive garden with a cast of regular friends – Scrap Boy, Hayman, Grubby and Ken. In each episode, Dirtgirl keeps a scrapbook about her adventures and so my diversion technique this morning was to suggest to Immy that we make a Dirtgirlworld scrapbook of our own.
She was all for it so I stapled together a few blank pages to make our scrapbook and then we set about filling it. Thanks to Google we found and printed out pictures of the main characters and Immy decided to stick these on the front cover of her scrapbook.
Then we added some pretty foam flower shapes as we have seen beautiful flowers in Dirtgirl’s garden.
Immy drew some flowers on the first page inside the scrapbook (her suggestion).
And then we cut out pictures of flowers, fruits and vegetables, oh- and some gumboots, from magazines and glued them into the subsequent pages.
Immy loves her scrapbook and has revisited it over and over again during the day. Just moments ago, she was sitting ‘reading’ her book and I transcribed what she said (each line represents a page in her book);
“Welcome at Dirtgirlworld.
I grow flowers.
I grow pumpkins.
I grow eggs.
I grow apples.
I wear welly boots.
Bye bye at Dirtgirlworld.”
This is definitely an activity we will revisit again. In fact I am planning to buy a notebook for a more permanent scrapbook and I will print out some photos of our own outdoor ‘dirtgirl’ moments to add.
P.S. Writing down what your children say as they ‘read’ can be so much fun and is a great way of recording their interests and development.
P.P.S Yes, Immy is still wearing her pjs and dressing gown in the photos above. We had a day at home today, complete with requisite late getting dressed time 🙂
Love the dressing gown! (Oh, and we are fans of dirtgirlworld too. My daughter calls herself dirtgirl and calls little brother scrapboy!!)
This is a very fun idea. We tried some self-made books with mixed results, since daughter is not a big fan of pen and paper at the moment. Brilliant diversion too.
What a timely post. I wrote on my to-do list yesterday: 'Buy scrapbooks for the kids'. I was thinking of using the scrapbooks in the same fashion. I definitely can't wait now! It's a great way to document special days out as well (tickets, brochures, etc.) of where you went.
LOL @ Sonia, 'buy scrapbooks' was on my shopping list for today too! My daughter loves dirtgirl too and can often be found digging in the garden singing 'dirtgirlworld' or 'Big orange tractor' at the top of her lungs. Love this activity, will be doing this one.
well done super mummy, that was a fab idea 🙂
Jessica has a scrapbook which we have stuck an alphabet letter sticker on each page. We regularly paste pictures of different things from old magazines/catalogues into the page of the letter that the object starts with. Jessica enjoys going through the pages and saying what the picture is of. It is a ongoing work in progress.
Sigh. If only I had a child who *asked* to watch TV now and then lol. Well, he does ask occasionally but he usually lasts about 45 seconds and he's right back to doing whatever – playing with toys, getting under my feet, trying to escape to the backyard lol. I laugh when I hear the phrase "using TV as a babysitter". Not to say I want him to watch tons of TV, of course, but the ability to have a quiet hour sitting on the couch now and then would be nice.
Anyway, enough coveting, back to your post lol… the scrapbook looks like a great idea, Immy clearly had lots of fun! And I love it when Little Man "reads" me a book. He still has trouble turning the pages one at a time so he'll pass me the book and say "You turn the pages for me?" 🙂
I'm a slug…a slug
Yep DGW a big favourite around here too
Love Immys book and the fact you captured her reading
We make lots of books here and find the black hardcover spiral bound thick white blank page ones (brand?/) we get from newsagents are excellent for "special" books or collections of things (like the alphabet book idea someone else mentioned) I think they are around $3-5 in the A5 size.
Then we also use the plain cheap A4 scrapbooks too for other projects> Ella (5) has 3 main ones on the go at the moment – Poems (so sweet, poems she has made up that I write out or now in Prep she is starting to do by self and then draws a pic to go with, her "Grateful Book" (self explanatory – things she is grateful for in words pics or cutouts of mags etc, and a Favourites book which is a mix again of lists (just like her mumma a list lover), pictures, drawing etc of things she likes and wants etc
Great fun – she pulls them out after school or on rainy inside days or even better when I am trying to get dinner sorted and will sit for ages adding to them. Very special
thanks for this idea – distraction is one of my fave techniques too but i have never thought to distract from the tv with an activity centred around the tv show that is causing the tears and whinging. Very good – i like it a lot!