Brain-O-Mania kicks off DBS's Healthy Brain/Screen-Free Week, a time for kids and families to rediscover all kinds of fun, brain-healthy activities to do instead of TV and video/computer games. Research has shown that too much screen time can increase the chance that your child will develop attention problems, anxiety, depression, sleep issues, and obesity. By limiting screen time to the recommended total of 1-2 hours per day, you can help your kids have fun and do all the things that help develop healthy brains - playing, discovering, imagining, building, creating, reading, solving problems, and being physically active!

Website: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/patientinstructions/000355.htm

• Be a junior neuroscientist!
• Learn about the brain!
• Take the Brain Quiz to enter the raffle for great brain-healthy prizes!
• Eat Brain Jello!

• arts and crafts
• physical activities
• games, challenges, music
  
• invent, build, pretend
• and more!

Find some entertaining books and activities at the Book Fair, which will be open during Brain-O-Mania and during afternoon hours the following week.

Have TONS of fun discovering what you can do instead of screen time!

• try some of these 75 Screen-Free Activities!

Check out the info below to find out more about these activities:

• make an arcade game & bring it to school
• create your entry for the recycled sculpture contest

• earn otters for the "You Otter Be Reading" read-a-thon
• take pictures of yourself and your "Original Playstation" (see below)
  

Make an arcade game out of cardboard and other materials you find around the house! Bring it into school on Thursday, May 1 or Friday, May 2. Students will get to play with DBS's own Caine's Arcade on Friday. This was a big hit last year - let's make it even bigger this year! See the video below for more info about Caine's Arcade.

Kids! Use boxes, cans, paper towel rolls, wood scraps, packing peanuts, sticks, or anything else you can find to create a recycled sculpture. In the past kids have made animals, robots, vehicles, dioramas, and lots of other cool sculptures. What's your idea? Bring your recycled sculpture to school Monday, April 28-Thursday, May 1 and display it in the lobby. Make sure to put your name on it!

How many hours can our DBS Otters read? Keep track of your reading time, and bring your reading log to your teacher each day. Earn otters to put in your classroom's brook by reading every day. The class with the highest score will earn a pizza lunch with the Otter! (K-2: 15 minutes = 1 otter, 3-5: 30 minutes = 1 otter). The "You Otter Be Reading" logs will be included in the Healthy Brain packet that will be sent home on Friday, April 25.

Where is your Original Playstation? Take pictures of yourself and friends having screen-free fun. We'll be asking parents to share Original Playstation photos on the DBS Facebook Page (after Screen-Free Week, of course!).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dothan-Brook-School/236614144330