20 Family Friendly Screen-Free Activities

Celebrate National Day of Unplugging with these easy and meaningful ways to reconnect with your whole crew.

By Amber Guetebier March 5, 2020

When it comes to unplugging in the modern world every parent knows it can be a challenge. But whether it’s a simple meal together or a round of hide and seek, there are plenty of ways to reconnect with the fam with nary a device in hand. Read on for our favorites.

photo: Agung Pandit Wiguna via Pexels

1. Enjoy a non-hurried, no-interruptions/texts/calls, 100% screen-free meal. It doesn’t matter if it’s take-out or gourmet.

2. Do a puzzle.

3. Write a story together.

4. Play superheroes for the day.

superhero_cc_Olaf_Gadin_via_CreativeCommons

photo: Olaf Gadin via flickr

5. Become a tourist in your own town. Visit a local museum, bookshop or cafe like a newbie.

6. Bake something together.

7. Make a mailbox and exchange letters.

8. Pretend you are a snake.

9. Clean up the house. No, really.

10. Hatch a dinosaur.

photo: Christal Yuen

11. Get creative with what you have on hand by playing low-fi games that take three props or fewer.

12. Go for a 5-minute “spot walk” around the block: Tell each member of the family to try and “spot” something they want to remember without saying what it is. Once you get home, let each person say what they observed.

13. Draw your family tree. It can be a simple tree with hearts on the branches, going back just one or two generations or you can go all Ancestry.com and get detailed.

14. Paint a Van-Gogh like masterpiece.

15. Head to the playground for a fitness break! See how many times you can go up and down the slide in one minute. Now see how many pumps (or pushes) it takes to swing taller than a parent’s height. Take turns doing pull-ups on the bars, sync your push ups on the bench and then race a lap around the park. Here are even more playground workout ideas.