But one day there was a power cut…
Can you imagine? A life without your computer? phone or tablet?
What would you do if you had to go outside, talk to people around you or explore the unknown outside the safety of your device?
Steve Antony has answered these questions in his creative picture book – Unplugged.
Blip, a little robot loves her computer and all of the different things she can do on it. She can play games, learn new things, sing, draw and go on adventures – what more could she want?
She thinks she has it all until the power is cut and it is only then that she realises how much more is outside and how much more colour it brings to our lives.
Blip loves being outside and with real friends and even though she loves her computer she realises just how great outdoor play is and the need to do it more often.
Simply told through words and pictures, children can see the similarities and differences between computer games and the outside world. But they can also see how much better playing outside is. Most children I have read this to have agreed that outside is so much better but they still like their computers – which is fine but as adults we really need to get motivated and take our children outside, explore with them, play with them and teach them just how much more is out there.
Computers are great but they can breed jealousy (when viewing those perfect pictures) time wasting, inappropriate content, narrow view of the world, time wasting and loss of imagination and creativity.
Perhaps it is time to see what you and your children are doing when you are plugged and unplugged. Perhaps it is time to become just like Blip and see how great it is to be unplugged!
So what else can you do with this book?
LITERACY
- Write a letter to yourself persuading you to get unplugged more often.
- Write a letter to your parents, encouraging them to get unplugged
- When Blip plays all day long there are no words between the friends. What do you think they might be saying to each other?
- If you were to spend a whole week with your family without screens what would you do? Where would you go? Write some ideas down to share.
NUMERACY
- Work out how much time you spend in front of a screen and work out a way you can spend less time in front of it.
- How often do you move? Investigate your daily movement and how taking time off the screen can help your movement and health.
INQUIRY
- How are you like Blip? Create an advertisement to show a person, before and after being unplugged. You can choose a perspective to take this from – health and wellness or computing company. Look at how advertisements can persuade us to do things that aren’t great for our health and see how you can create your own.
