Things to do During a Brownout

So with the scheduled brownouts now five hours everyday and school  already out, what are we to do to entertain the kids? I’ve always believed that TV and computer shouldn’t be at the center of a child’s life. So here are some activities we do during the brownouts:

• Read – Well, whether there’s electricity or not my kids read everyday so this isn’t anything new. But they do enjoy the time just looking and browsing through their picture books. Nadine reads junior novels already so her time is pre occupied with this.
• Play with their toys – Again, nothing new for my kids. They can spend hours and hours just playing with their toys in their room. Even Alyssa has her own imaginative play already. Yup, the toys are all worth the price.
• Board and card games – I came out of the room one day and saw Nadine and Raya quietly playing Word for Word (similar to Scrabble) then moved on to Chess afterwards. Don’t think they finished their games though but it was nice seeing them do stuff to entertain themselves. They would play their Pokemon cards too or Lucky 9 with ordinary playing cards.
• Give the dog a bath – Or just simple play with the dog. Nadine had fun soaping and washing the dog and getting wet too in the process. She went straight to bathe herself afterwards. Another time, Raya asked permission if she can just stay outside with our dog Max. Mier found her quietly patting the dog and removing the ticks. Hahaha!
• Go to the park – A day at the park definitely spells fun for the kids. They enjoyed the swings, slide, seesaw and monkey bars. You can also pick flowers, blow bubbles, catch insects and kick the ball. Or even fly a kite on a windy day.
• Arts and Crafts Projects – The kids set up a table outside and brought out their paints and crayons. They just drew, colored and painted the afternoon away good thing we bought newsprint paper for the kids to use. Even Alyssa enjoyed drawing and coloring.
• Batya Swimming at the Back – Ahhh, another favorite pastime of my girls. They wouldn’t mind spending countless hours just lazing around in our laundry basins at the back of our house. We ask them to wash their shoes too or choose some stuff toys to bathe too so at least they are cleaning and doing something productive as well.
• Shadow Play – For those nighttime brownouts, the girls created paper puppets and used the back of the couch as their stage. They made stories and came up with little plays. We also made shadow animals with our hands and even Alyssa enjoyed trying to guess the animal.
• Tell Stories – My girls always love hearing how they were born and how they were when they were smaller. We look at photo albums and see how they have grown all these years and read what they use to do.

There are countless other stuff that can be done during the brownouts. We are challenged to be more and more creative to keep the kids entertained especially with the summer rolling in. But I do hope government officials will do something about the power crisis. It isn’t enough to think of stuff to do for the kids but the heat can be unbearable too.