100 Family Media Literacy Activities, Ages Pre-School through Teen Years

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Looking for Meaning in All the Right Places

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Reading the Screen

Screen Time and Obesity

Screen Violence: Impact on Self as Relational Being

Teaching Children Gratefulness

100 Family Media Literacy Activities (cont.)

28.       Ask: “What will happen next?”
This is a simple, yet effective activity. Mute the commercials while your family watches TV together and ask each child and adult what he/she thinks will happen next. There are no right or wrong answers! This gives everyone a chance to engage in creative interplay and then to test his/her “hypothesis” when the show resumes. Children may learn just how predictable and mundane a lot of programs are and soon improve on the scriptwriters, adding their own creative ideas!

29.       Record your child’s favorite show.
Then play it back during a long car trip or around a cozy fireplace on a dark winter evening. The purpose of this activity would be for your child to hear the program, without seeing the visuals. Talk about how the characters and their actions change as a result of only hearing the show. Does your child have to listen more intently? Why or why not? What are some crucial distinctions between watching and listening?
 
30.       Encourage your child or teen to be a media creator.
Ultimately what we want is for our children to find ways to creatively express who they are. You can encourage a child to use a digital camera and make a photo collage of a family trip, for instance. Older children and teens can create websites, blogs, even podcasts. Screen technologies are powerful tools and when used intentionally, with specific purposes, our children become media-literate in the process of learning more about their own creativity and unique skills.
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15 Media Activities for Children, ages 3-6

Screen Violence

1.         Talk about real-life consequences.
If the screen violence were happening in real life, how would the victim feel? In real life what would happen to the perpetrator of the violence? Compare what's on the screen to the consequences of what happens when someone hurts another person in the real world.

2.         Violence is not the way to solve problems.
Emphasize that hurting another person in any way or destroying property is wrong and won't solve a person's problems. Point out to your child that many of the violent cartoon characters never seem to solve their problems from episode to episode, and that to use violence is to act without thinking of the consequences. Tell your child it's powerful and smart to find peaceful, creative ways to solve problems with other human beings. Choose a problem your child encountered recently such as another child taking a toy away and talk about the reasonable way the problem was resolved or could have been resolved—without hurting.

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