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Filling Free Time

What to do with the hours nobody scheduled

Play this lessonNarrated out loud. No account, works offline.

Also available in Spanish. The app stops after two lessons a day and suggests something to do away from the screen.

What it teaches

These are the lines the lesson comes back to, and the ones a child actually remembers afterwards.

Free time works better with a shape.

Tired is not bored. Eat first.

You are allowed to be the one with the idea.

How it starts

School finishes, and then there is this big empty piece of time before dinner. Nobody tells you what to do with it. And on a Saturday it is not one empty piece, it is the whole day. That much free time sounds brilliant until you are standing in it, and then it is the exact moment a screen starts looking like the only idea in the house.

How the lesson goes

The after-school three

  1. One that moves your body
  2. One that makes something
  3. One that helps a person

Moves your body

  1. Race yourself to the corner and back
  2. Ten of something, then eleven tomorrow
  3. Invent an obstacle course indoors

Makes something

  1. A comic of your actual day
  2. Something built that stays up overnight
  3. A recipe you are allowed to do alone

Helps a person

  1. Do a job before you're asked
  2. Teach a younger kid one thing
  3. Put away something that isn't yours

Weekend-sized ideas

  1. Something that takes two days
  2. Something with another person in it
  3. Something that ends in a thing you can show

The question at the end

What are the three shapes for free time?

For the grown-up

Every lesson ends by handing the child something to do off the screen, and telling you what was taught so you can use the same words.

Try this today: Pick one of the three and do it before dinner today. Tell a grown-up which one you picked before you start.

Then: On Friday, decide your weekend thing out loud, and tell someone what it is.

More in Screens

The whole library is free

Twenty-four narrated lessons for ages 4 to 9, in English and Spanish. No account, no sign-up, no ads, and nothing your child does in the app ever leaves the device — you can check that yourself with the network tab open. Open the lessons.