With the emphasis on having phone-free advisories this year, students have found ways to take their eyes off screens and bond with their advisory.

Puzzles and Card Games

Senior Elyana Brook often does puzzles in Senior Commons to destress from the academic rigors of the school day. Her favorite puzzle is based on the “Where’s Waldo?” books.

“If I had a really hard day, and I just need a stim, I’ll go and do that because it’s super hard,” Brook said. “You can think about that instead of school.”

Outside of Senior Commons, she enjoys playing games, such as Uno, with her advisory.

“There was a table outside [senior commons] with all of the games, and so someone picked up Uno, and we started playing it,” Brook said. “It’s been helpful to connect with your advisory because we’re not all from the same friend groups or doing the same things, so you’re able to hear what everyone’s doing and have fun with it.”

Coloring

Last year, senior Deniz Gurun’s advisory met in the Writing Center, and when Ms. Fisher noticed that they seemed stressed, she bought a huge coloring sheet. Their advisory finished the sheet in two weeks, sparking inspiration to continue coloring. Gurun credits the impact of both Ms. Fisher’s encouragement and their self-motivation for a fulfilling phone-free advisory.

“There’s a big balance because at the end of the day, we’re the ones coloring it, but Ms. Fisher is our number one supporter by buying the coloring sheets and markers,” Gurun said. “Coloring sparks conversation and makes sure that we’re not having our eyes on our screens the whole time.”

Campfire

To the Allan-Tevis advisory, phoneless advisory time is not a new concept. Junior Libby Temple said the group has shared an advisory tradition every Friday since freshman year.

“We do something called campfire, where Ms. Allan brings out a miniature campfire,” Temple said. “We all sit around in a circle and share stories about our week or answer a fun question.” What started out as a way for the advisory to get to know each other freshman year has evolved into a routine that Temple looks forward to each week.

“Campfire prompts us to listen to each other and gives us an opportunity to congregate without our screens and decompress at the end of the week,” Temple said.

Memory Jar

Sophomore Adriana Crook, in Ms. Lake and Mr. Lee’s advisory, shared that her advisory keeps a memory jar and that adding to their jar has become a fun activity that takes place during phoneless advisory time.

“Once every rotation when it’s phone free advisory, we write down our favorite memory as an advisory from that week, and we add it to the jar,” Crook said. “We will open the jar together as an advisory our senior year and look back at all the fun memories we made with each other.”