Screen Free Week bulletin board

From May 2-May 8, CEMS and the Thomas Memorial Library partnered to support our students’ participation in Fairplay’s Screen-Free Week. While the national movement encouraged spending the week free of screen use for entertainment purposes, here at CEMS we invited students to set a personal goal for themselves that felt attainable. 

Some of these goals included:

  • “One hour a day or less”

  • “Right when I get home don’t go right on my phone or ipad and go outside or get homework done.”

  • “I am going to not use my phone at all except for calling people or texting or maybe listening to music”

  • “No electronics after 9:30pm”

We also created a bulletin board of what we would like to do instead during that time:

After completing the week, students who completed their goal sheet and reflection received a certificate of achievement and a treat for their efforts!

Here are some of their reflections:

  • “It made me feel better because I wasn’t always having headaches”

  • “I was more calm and I noticed I went outside more”

  • “It made me feel like I had time for everything in a good day”

  • “It felt good to not be on my screen as much. On Friday, we went completely screen free and it was fun. It felt more interactive.”

  • “It made me notice how much fun I could have with not using screens.”

  • “I noticed that not going on Netflix/TV right after school helped me get my homework done and get prepared for sports after school.”

  • “It helped me sleep.”

                                                         

Fifth graders Ben Rayback and Isaac Austin were two of many students who participated in Screen-Free Week! 

We hope that students and families will take some of what they learned into the rest of the year!