TV Tales

My kids are getting to an age where they are engaged in the television shows that they watch.  They ask questions about what’s going on and act out the stories after I turn the tv off.  They apparently also act them out in school since last week I learned that Briana put on a play wedding dress and married a boy in her class.  On the way home from school as she was detailing her post-marital plans with Brigham, I asked her where she got the idea to wear a wedding dress and get married.  She said “Chloe told me.”  Chloe?  I didn’t recognize that name.  “Is she is Ms. M’s class?” I asked.  “No.  On tv.”  Oh, Chloe’s closet.  A cute little 10 minute show on Sprout that I don’t think we’ve watched more than 3 times in her lifetime.  I guess one of those 3 episodes was about weddings.  Abigail is the same way.  A few days ago she asked me to “turn on tv” and I said no.  She went and got the remote, brought it to me and said “I found it.  I found remote. Turn on tv.  Oso.  Watch Oso.”  I repeated no tv, to which she replied “Watch Diego?” No, Abby.  We’re kids, we play.  “Watch Einsteins?”  Abby!  No shows. 

Anyway, I figure that there are two ways to take the kids’ newfound interest in tv shows.  1) Fight it, or 2) Embrace it and shape it.  I choose #2.  If the kids are interested in television, let’s learn about it.

The goal today is actually to help the children pay attention to storylines because I think that can only help with their reading comprehension.  I’m not ready to start teaching them about electronics because in my mind it’s only going to lead to toddler electrocution as they explore their new knowledge.  Maybe later, and in a way that is not related to things that plug in.  So I’m steering clear of teaching them exactly how the tv works, and using the tv to teach about parts of a story today.

But before we can build a story, we need a television.

How To Make A Shoebox Television

You’ll need:

·      A shoebox with lid

·      Exacto knife or scissors

·      Saran wrap

·      Aluminum Foil

·      Construction Paper

·      Toilet paper or paper towel roll (without the paper on it)

·      Imagination

First grab a shoebox.  Ideally you want a good size television to play with, so I was planning on using one of my husband’s size 13 shoe boxes, but I found a nice gold colored boot box from some Fergie booties I got a while ago…yes, that Fergie…but I stand by y purchase because the booties are adorable.  It was nice and big to hold the boots but it was also gold colored so we would have less work to make our tv pretty. 

I grab an exacto  knife and cut a square out of the bottom of the box.  Leave a couple of inches on all sides for knobs.   Older kids can use scissors to do the same thing.   I strongly recommend using an exacto knife when doing a craft like this with little kids.  First time you’ve heard that I bet.  The reason is that exacto knives are retractable, so you don’t have a blade or scissors out to entice the kids, and if they grab it off of the table, it’s just plastic that their hands touch before you quickly grab it and put it away.  I also cut a large slit on the side, top to bottom (for the movie, later), and a small hole in the top (to hold the antennae).

“Kids, what does a tv have on it?” I ask.  “A front part where the show comes on.”  Briana replies after some thought.  “It’s called the tv screen.”

I grab some Saran Wrap and we tape it onto the inside of the box over the hole.  The reason that I put the screen inside the box is simply so that the kids will have a harder time pulling it off.

I grab some aluminum foil to make antennae.  “Nooo.  There’s no ten-ahs on a tv!”  Briana giggles.  Well, there used to be when Mommy was a kid.  If we didn’t have cable bringing us our shows, then we’d need an antennae to catch the sound waves and image waves to show us our show.”  Bree oks the making of antennae as long as she gets to make one.  Then I poke both of our antennae into the top hole in the box.

Bree says that we need something to catch the sound waves if the antenna is catching the picture waves.  She asks for some more foil.  I watch wondering what she’s thinking.  She makes what looks like a microphone to me and says, “Here’s the speaker for our tv just like the radio has a speaker on the side.”  Nice.  I hadn’t planned to add a speaker, I was just thinking about knobs, so it’s good that I asked them what went on the tv.  We tape the speaker right where Briana says to.

Then she says we need an ‘on’ button.  I roll up some foil and add tape and give it to Briana to tape onto the front.  I wanted to add more buttons and volume knobs and the like, but Briana tells me “look at the tv.  It doesn’t have all those buttons on it.  Just one.” And she throws away my creations.  Stupid button-less flat screen in the upstairs playroom caused my beautiful creations to be trashed! 

As far as Briana is concerned, our tv is completed so we play around looking at ourselves on tv for a while.

Abby, however, does not think that we are finished.  She is insistent that we need a remote.  Hmmm.  I grab a toilet paper roll, flatten it, and cover it in foil.  The great thing about foil is that you can write in it.  So we have a quick practice of our numbers while we write 1-9 on our remote.  What else is on the remote?  A channel button, a volume button, and an ‘on’ button. 

 

The remote passes Abby’s inspection (with her mouth full of snack) and we move on to making our tv shows.

How To Make a Show for Your Shoebox Television

This is the fun part.  We’re going to make a tv show. 

First, we need a story.  Briana is quick to start a story.  I tell her that we have to draw out everything that happens in our story.  I was surprised to realize that Briana had never heard of the concept of the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  We’ve made many stories before but I had never broken them down like that.  I tell her that the beginning of the story needs to set up who all of the characters are and what they are doing.  The middle is when something happens to our characters.  The end is when they fix whatever is happening and live happily ever after.  She mulls that over for a while and we go over it a couple more times with examples from shows we’d seen recently.  For example, in the beginning of Diego, he is sitting in the Animal Rescue Center and he sees a baby tapir that doesn’t know where it’s home is.  In the middle of the story, Diego and the tapir ride the train and try to find his home.  Yes, and the good tasting grass, clouds, and water.  Her show retention is great apparently.  In the end, the tapir finds his home.  Yes, and he gets to swim in the water.  Now she gets it.  While she thinks up “the perfect story for our tv show” I prep the paper.

Before we can draw out our story, we need to get the paper ready.  First cut the paper so that it can fit through the side slit.  I had to take about 2 inches off of the top.  Then make lines on it where the screen would hit it.  That way you make sure you don’t draw your show where it will be hidden by the tv frame.    Leave some room at the beginning.  You’ll understand why in a minute.  Also, decide how long you want your movie to be and tape paper together.  I decided that ours would need to reach resolution in 2 pieces of paper.  Now we’re ready to write the show. 

Briana decides that Abby’s show should be on orange paper and that it should be called “The Pootastrophe”.  Poor Abby.  She is just beginning to be potty trained and let’s just say she gets the taking off of the Pull-up part, but not necessarily the getting on the potty quickly thereafter part.  Nonetheless, Abby doesn’t have any preference to her title and is anxious to start coloring, so I write “Title.  The Pootastrophe” on hers and the words “Beginning, Middle, and End” to frame her story.  She happily colors away.

Briana calls her show “Car by Briana”.  The Beginning - “Lightening McQueen and his friends are playing.”  The Middle - “The big, bad wolf that was a car came sneaking.” The End - “Lightening McQueen raced off and was safe.”  She worked very hard on that story and we had many revisions on the wording and the artwork.  She was a very diligent screenwriter and illustrator today.   Admittedly, I started losing some of my patience as I was anxious to see if our tv would work and I had to keep cutting the paper to size and taping 2 pieces together, and marking the screen on it with every revision, but I counted to 10 and reminded myself that the whole point is really for her to think about the parts of her story.  Then I sat back and let her use up all of the yellow paper getting her first movie just right.

When Briana and Abby had both finished their stories, I got a paper towel roll and cut it fit inside of our tv.  You could use a toilet paper roll too, but I chose a paper towel roll because it’s long and could be cut to have a better fit inside the shoebox.  If it’s too short, it will fall over.  Tape the scenes of your movie together to make one roll of film like a movie reel if you haven’t already.  Then tape the end of the movie to the roll and wind the movie carefully around the roll. 

Put the roll with the movie on it into the tv and thread the beginning through the slit.  That’s why you want to leave some room at the beginning, so the movie will begin with the title showing in the screen. 

Then put the back of the tv on (the shoebox lid).  I announce the beginning of the movie and pull the movie through the slit, telling the story as I go.  Just like that, the kids’ movies came alive.

  

The kids were so excited to watch their movies over and over.  Bree would push the power button on the tv and I would start the movie.  She told Abby that the remote didn’t work because she tried to use it herself and the movie didn’t run.  I tried telling her that Mommy was powering the movie, but she thinking pushing the power button on the tv made it go anyway.

I have seen multiple versions of how to do this craft.  Another way to do it is to cut two bigger holes in the top on each side (instead of in the top middle like I did).  Wrap your movie around two rollers (chopsticks are great for this) and put the rollers through the holes in the top.  That way you can turn your rollers on top to “play” your movie.   You can rewind it as well.  I don’t recommend this if you have kids as young as mine are, because they’re likely to lean on your box while turning the knobs and break it, and, more importantly, they won’t be able to turn the knobs and watch the show at the same time which will likely be frustrating.  Finally, if you do it this way, you’ll want to make a longer movie than 2 sheets of paper, or it won’t stay on the rolls well.

Now the next time they watch tv, I hope that they are thinking about the parts of the television and the parts of the story.  Hey, if they’re going to watch it, and they are, I want to help make it as enriching an experience as is possible.  If you can’t beat them, join them, right?

<3 Pedigreed Housewife