A Family Guide to Unplugged Activities

This post was sponsored through PPL Electric Utilities by Project Envolve. I have been provided with complimentary products and/or payment in exchange for sharing ideas. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Have you ever thought about what you would do in an hour without power? We are so convenienced with excellent electricity providers and overcoming generators in our world today, that we hardly think of the possibility of not even using power for an hour. In fact we typically have to make it a choice and commitment to have an hour without power.

We then call it . . . going unplugged.

The idea behind unplugging and reconnecting with your family is simple: just spend an hour without using any power.

As I was posed with the question about what we would do in an hour without power, I had to stop and think. What would we do? Sleep would be a good option—we never seem to get enough of it! But supposing it was the middle of the day when we are all wide awake, what would we do?

We decided to put it to the test, and gave our family a challenge! We invited another family to join us, and committed to one hour without power. I honestly thought with six kids, ranging in age from three to nine, I’d need to have an entire list of activities to keep us occupied. So what did the planner in me do?

I made a family guide to unplugged activities and fun of course! Here is the list we came up with, including ideas for all ages and interests, from crafts, to games, to art, to jokes, to books, to getting outside! And ALL of them are energy efficient—requiring NO POWER!

Family Games

There are so many options here, its impossible to list them all. I included games that we have on hand that we have played time and time again. Always amounting to hours of fun!

Pictionary. This was my favorite game as a kid. I loved playing it at family get-togethers with my uncles, aunts and cousins. Its always more fun in a large group! Recently, I have found it is still my favorite game, even with little kids. We play it a little differently with a 3, 5 and 7 year old, but it still works! Want to know our trick to make it work even when the kids can’t read? We use a kids charades game cards! Yes, you read that right. The kids draw a card that has a picture on it—perhaps a chicken or a duck—and even without being able to read, they know what it is. Then they just draw a version of the picture they saw. If you have little kids, you must give this idea a try—it is just so fun!
Charades. We like our kids version of charades, that has the clues drawn on the card. The categories are also simpler—like animals, actions and nouns. This is the version we have, and we love it!
Telestrations. The telephone game stretched out. Let me just tell you, this is a crazy cool game. We absolutely fell in love with it. If you want to find out why, continue reading through the rest of this post and you’ll find out more about our experience with it!

No-Bake Recipes

Many recipes require the use of power, but if you take a minute to think, you’ll probably come up with an entire list of no-bake recipes you have made. The tricky part is finding ones that don’t use a stove or a mixer. All of these recipes use NO POWER so are excellent for your family’s hour without power challenge or even if you’re just trying to save money on your electricity bill!

Energy Bites. A frugal and fun snack idea that you can make with kids (and even toddlers too!) And if you want to be a little more unique in your flavors, check out this post that includes energy bite flavors of carrot cake and smores!
Frozen Yogurt Bites. This unique recipe is simple enough to make with toddlers—just take fresh fruit, dip them in yogurt, roll them in toppings and freeze!
Eclair Dessert. This recipe is a certain Lancaster County favorite—and its so simple, with only 4 ingredients!
Easiest Ever No-Bake Ice Cream Cake. Just layer on the ingredients, re-freeze and viola, you’re done!
No Bake Monster Cookie Energy Bites. A fun version of energy bites, these look and taste more like cookies!
Summer Berry Cheesecake Salad. If you have some fruit, pudding mix, marshmallows and whipped topping on hand, besides 15 minutes in the fridge, this recipe is quick and easy!
Make some trail mix. Toss together some cranberries, pistachios, dried banana chips, cheerios and yogurt covered pretzels.

Indoor Play & Crafts

Build a fort. Our kids would build forts all day and all night if we let them. For me, its a little boring—so if you’re joining in with the kids, you might want to try some unique ideas like these. There is even instructions on how to build the ultimate fort with your pillow cushions—it’s pretty cool!
Play with legos. We love finding lego building guides for kids at the library, and building creative lego figurines as a family.
Paint something. Keep it simple and get some paper out, or find a rock or piece of wood to paint on a different texture!
Learn some origami. Origami can be a fantastic craft to do with kids as young as four or five years old, but I’ve found they really take off and latch on to origami starting closer to six or seven years old. Find a beginner’s guide to start with, and you’ll be set to spend hours together folding paper! I love that the Complete Beginner’s Guide to Learn Origami in Under 1 Day gives you fifteen ideas to start off with. (FYI, libraries often have a huge origami book section!)
Make a simple craft. Glue some buttons, fold some paper, use an old frame—the ideas are endless. Here is an entire pinterest board just of simple craft ideas!
Make marshmallow shooters! Have you seen these? A babysitter did this once with our kids and they loved it. Personal note: I did find marshmallows around the house in hidden areas for months afterwards!
Have an indoor scavenger hunt. You don’t need to have anything pre-planned for this. Just make a quick checklist of things around the house for them to find. To give you some ideas, consider finding something red, soft, bumpy, sticky, smelly, hard, crunchy, yellow, etc…
Tell jokes and riddles. Our kids love jokes and riddles. We found an old riddle book at a yardsale a few years ago, but here is one that’s FREE on Kindle right now! I love how it makes them think creatively and I am always shocked how quickly they memorize and repeat the riddles back to us or other friends and family! Here are two of our favorite riddles:
1. Riddle: “Above the ground, knot in a tree, I’ve told you the answer, now you tell me.”
  Answer: “Knot in a tree.” 🙂
2. Riddle: “How do you make time fly?”
  Answer: Throw your watch over the cliff.

Outdoor Play

Playing outside without power seems pretty easy, but sometimes it can be hard to come up with a new idea. Here are a few favorites you can implement in your home!

Go on a nature walk. Have you ever wrapped masking tape around your child’s wrist—backwards? And then have them stick things to it they find on their walk? Brilliant!
DIY Outside Chalk Paint. This is an absolute must-do with your kids!
Muddy Trucks Carwash. What toddler boy wouldn’t love this?
Play a backyard game. I love how this family made their own yardzee game!

Play in the Dark

The first thing I think of when I think of no power is being in the dark. It didn’t happen often when I was a kid, but when it did, it was something special! We got out the candles and lanterns and we made some awesome memories as a family. Here are a few things you can do in the dark!

Make Mini Glow Paint Lights. I love this idea! What a great way to reuse a spice container.
Play with some glowsticks. I love the idea of adding the sticks to water bottles, thus creating glow in the dark bowling!!
Make glow slime.
Blow some glow-in-the-dark bubbles. All you need is some flourescent or glow in dark paint, water and dishsoap.
Hop scotch. Use this glow-in-the-dark tape to tape out hopscotch on your floor!

Our Family’s Power Hour Challenge

We started our hour without power playing a new game, Telestrations. Everyone except the three and four year old that is, who were thrilled to just chill on the floor playing with tractors, trucks and cars.

Have you heard of Telestrations? It is recommended for ages 6 and up, but we found it could work really well if an adult paired with kids as young as four or five years old and who couldn’t read yet. To sum the game up, you each get a little whiteboard that flips to six different pages. You write the word you are given on your first page, and then when the timer starts you draw that word on the next page. You pass the whiteboard book to your right and then you look at the picture, flip the page, and write down your guess. Pass the book again, draw the picture of the word, and then the next person guesses what that picture is. You keep passing until the last page is completed.

You can probably imagine what happens in the game. Suddenly after a few passes of the book, a pirate ship becomes a rowboat, or a cat transitions to a dinosaur. Its incredibly fun! And yes, I did sometimes draw my word in a unique way just to get a crazy guess. Shh, don’t tell anyone. 🙂

Would you believe that we loved the game so much, that we played it with all the kids for over an hour? We didn’t even realize that much time had passed!! I still can’t believe it myself. I’m still shocked that I think the five year olds may have been the ones to love it the most!

Just a little note about the three and four year old. We did later find them playing in a bedroom, and a certain little three year old had pulled out every single tissue from the tissue box and thrown them all over the room! Mental note, don’t get distracted playing a game and forget to check on the three year old!

I’m still in shock that the game lasted that long and blew away our hour without power, but at least I have a nice list of ideas to try in case we do a family unplugged time again—which I think we might do, seeing that we had such a blast!

Do you ever wonder how much you unconsciously use energy?

Consider giving your family an hour without power challenge this next week. Then be sure to join the Project Envolve Team on Wednesday, April 5, 2017 for a fun Twitter Party chatting about your experiences and how your unplugged time as a family went!

Visit the Project Envolve website for a lot more smart and practical energy efficient ideas you can start implementing now with your family to save on your energy bills!