Audiobook and coloring hour: a calm reset
Some afternoons everyone is wound up and nobody needs another screen. Borrow a free audiobook from your library, put out paper and crayons for two, and spend an hour listening and coloring side by side.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Cost
- $0
- Ages
- 4 to 10
- Where
- Kitchen table or living-room floor
What you need
- A library card and your library's free audiobook app on a phone or tablet
- A small speaker, or the phone's own speaker
- Coloring pages or blank paper, two stacks: one for you, one for them
- Crayons, colored pencils or markers
- A blanket and pillows, if you're on the floor
Before you start
- Crayon pieces and marker caps are small. If a baby or toddler is nearby, keep them off the floor and count caps back in at the end.
- Use a speaker, not earbuds. You both hear the same story, and you can keep the volume at a comfortable room level.
- Preview the book. Read the description and the age range before you borrow, so nothing scary lands right before bed.
Steps
- Borrow the book. Sign in to your library's free audiobook app, pick a book that's available now, and download it.
- Set up two spots. Lay out two stacks of pages and one box of crayons side by side, with a lamp on.
- Put the screen away. Start the book, then put the phone face down or out of sight.
- Color with them. Color your own page alongside them. Don't fix theirs.
- Pause once to talk. Pause once halfway and ask what they think happens next, then keep listening.
- Hang the pages. Tape one page each on the fridge and write the book title on the back.
If it stalls
- If they keep asking to see the screen, put the phone in another room and use a speaker connected by Bluetooth, or a library CD if your library still lends them.
- If coloring isn't their thing, swap in play dough, LEGO or a puzzle. Hands busy, ears on the story.
Chapters heard · pages colored
Signed off: can do this.Signed by Date