Tube Heads

Materials:

• Large cardboard box
• art supplies
• yogurt container lids
• nontoxic glue or tape
• straws

This activity, which allows your child to produce and talk back to TV shows, might be the only type of "interactive television" we'll ever endorse and enjoy.

To make some "tube head" gear, take a box at least twelve by twelve by eighteen inches and cut out a "screen" in front, as well as a hole in the bottom large enough for a person's head to comfortably fit through. Have your child draw a dial or two under the screen, or affix yogurt container lids; these are the "controls." In back of the "set," tape two drinking straws at a forty-five-degree angle to each other (the antennae).

Next, have your child make a TV listing, including the program titles and types (documentaries, cartoons, news, etc.) and segment descriptions. "Audience" members then take turns choosing the shows for your tube head child to "broadcast" (act out). For added fun, groups of kids can wear their own tube head gear and become part of the show.

This is one—and perhaps the only—time when you're sure to find "talking heads" great television!

More on: Imagination Play

Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.