Kids at Blue Grass Elementary give up TV on Tuesday

About 80 students at eastern Iowa’s Blue Grass Elementary School are taking part in “No TV Tuesdays.” Instead of watching the tube, they’re encouraged to talk at the dinner table, leap into literature, play Monopoly, do craft projects or get some exercise. Parent Lynne Leacox tried the idea out with her family first. She says they picked a few days a week where the kids read books or played board games instead of sitting in front of the TV. Leacox had been part of the P-T-A for years and decided to take the idea to a bigger scale than just her own household. She says the area kids are surviving just fine without a daily TV fix. She says some of the kids really enjoy it. Leacox says they’re not trying to totally ban TV but they just want to get kids out of the habit of plopping down and doing nothing but zoning out on mindless shows and cartoons. The P-T-A gives a prize to each student who participates in “No TV Tuesdays” at least one time per per semester.Students keep track of their no-T-V hours and have logged more than 24-hundred hours so far. Leacox jokes there are no plans in the works for “No Radio Tuesdays.”