How to get your kids switched on about cutting energy costs

With skyrocketing gas and electricity bills, parents need all the help they can get. Former primary school teacher Matt Watson of education resource experts PlanBee says why not take the opportunity to teach them about how to conserve energy

Don’t alarm your youngsters by sharing your worries about bills but teach them how they can help.

Make it fun!
Play a game in which children have to spot anything around the house that is wasting energy (e.g. a light left on, a device on charge unnecessarily, a TV on standby…) Children could be given a point every time they spot one of these happening in the house and the winner is the person with the most points at the end of the week.

Board game fun
Children could design and make their own board game to encourage saving energy using these FREE Blank Board Game Templates. For example, on one of the squares it might say ‘You left the light on when you left the room – move back 3 spaces’ or ‘You remembered to turn the tap off when you were brushing your teeth. Move forward 2 spaces’ etc.

Energy-free family fun night
Why not set an evening in the week where instead of watching TV or using devices, you come together as a family and do activities requiring no energy? For example, play a board game, play charades, go out in the garden for a game of badminton, walk to the local park, or tell stories.

Chores by hand
Getting children to help you out with chores by hand is a good way to teach them how much we rely on energy for our modern lives. You could try hand-washing a stained garment rather than putting it in a washing machine or washing the dishes rather than using a dishwasher one day a week.

Get out and about
Children love being outside and there are loads of activities that can be done outdoors requiring no energy. For example, you could go on a bike ride, go for a walk around the local area, go to the park and play on the equipment or take a ball with you for a kick around. Remember to talk to your child about how what they are doing is using absolutely no energy (other than their own!)

Lead by example
It is really important to show children through your own actions how important it is to save energy. If you don’t practise what you preach, children are unlikely to do so either!

Recycling
Recycling is so important because it uses much less energy than creating things from scratch every time. Talk to your children about this and get the children involved with sorting the recycling and taking it out on your collection day.

Get crafty
Children love being creative so why not put away their devices or switch off the TV and see what they can create from leftover milk bottle tops, kitchen roll tubes and empty packaging!

Sort it
Set up a mini recycling centre in your house – give the children boxes for different materials and see if children can sort packaging into them correctly. Getting them involved in activities like this will teach children about why recycling is important and help them learn which materials can and cannot be recycled.

Marvelous maths
Find out how much a KW/hour costs and then challenge your child to work out how much it costs to watch a film on the TV, cook a meal or have that hot-tub running! If you have a smart meter you could challenge the family to see how low you can get your energy usage week on week.