Earth Day Activities For Kids

What are you doing for Earth Day 2011?  That's what my children keep asking me.  They're anticipating the holiday with as much excitement as they have before Christmas.  So I made a list of a few ideas to make the day fun and meaningful at the same time.

1.  Plant a tree, shrub, flower, or seeds.  The main objective is to get the kids to appreciate nature and what it provides (i.e. tree=shade, shrub=shelter for small animals, etc.).  Seeds can be planted indoors to be transferred outside at a later date.

2.  Attend an organized community event.  Many cities and/or communities sponsor events on or near Earth Day.  The event may include a "fair" with various eco-friendly organizations showing their products/services at booths.  The event may involve a trash clean-up at a local park or other public place.  Visit earthday.org to find out if there's an event in your area.

3.  Organize your own trash pick-up.  If your community isn't already doing this, you can initiate it yourself.  Start at a park in your neighborhood and walk the paths picking up trash along the way.  Don't forget to bring a large garbage bag (or two) to throw everything in.  Leave the trash bag next to the trash can at the park to be picked up on garbage day.  My family did this one year and by the end of our walk, we had several neighbor kids who had joined in our effort -- very fun!

4.  Go on a hike.  Get out and enjoy nature by hiking a trail in your area.  The goal is to help the children experience the peacefulness that nature has to offer.  This activity could be combined with the trash pick-up described above.

5.  Visit a farmer's market.  If you live in an area that has a farmer's market open, take the kids and let them choose an item or two to serve for dinner.  If you're like me and have just received another dusting of snow, this might not be an option.  Instead, visit a co-op or grocery store that sells local or organic products and let the kids choose an item or two.  Cook a meal using only local ingredients and discuss the benefits to the environment when you eat local.

6.  Get crafty.  Use some of the trash that you picked up earlier in the day (or items you have around the house) and be creative.  See what ideas you or your child can think of to craft with the trash.  How about a plastic bag kite, or a CD jewel case scrapbook.  For inspiration, take a look at the "Kids" section of this blog.


What about you:  Does your family do anything special to celebrate Earth Day?  Do your kids get excited about this "holiday"?

Trash to Treasure: Plastic Bag Kite and Parachute

Looking for a use for all those plastic shopping bags?  Well, you could either use them as garbage bags in a small garbage can or bring them back to the store for recycling.  OR you could do something much more fun -- make a plastic bag craft with your children!  Here's how:

Plastic Bag Kite:
1.  Gather the following materials:  ball of string approximately 50-75 feet in length, plastic shopping bag, scissors, and tape.

2.  Go outside and find two straight sticks about 1-2 feet in length.  Can substitute with dowel sticks, if preferred.

3.  Lay the sticks in a cross pattern and wrap string around their crossing point until secure and tie off with a knot.  This will be the frame of the kite.

4.  Open a plastic shopping bag by cutting down the side.  Spread bag out flat.

5.  Lay the frame on the bag and cut the sticks of the frame to size, if necessary.

6.  Use string or tape to attach the plastic bag to the ends/points of the frame, making sure the plastic is taut.

7.  Cut a piece of string slightly longer than the horizontal stick of the frame.  Tie this on each end of the horizontal stick.  There should be a bit of slack in this string once tied.

8.  Tie the remainder of the ball of string onto the the cross string from Step 7.  This is the string you will use to fly your kite.

9.  Cut strips of plastic from another bag and attach ribbons and a tail as desired to help the kite balance.

10.  Go outside and have fun flying your kite.

Note:  The plastic shopping bags are not very strong and will likely be torn by the wind after a short time.  To obtain a more durable kite, a plastic garbage bag can be used in place of the shopping bag.


Plastic Bag Parachute:
1.  Gather the following materials:  piece of string approximately 4 feet in length, plastic shopping bag, scissors, and tape.  You will also need a heavy weight such as a rock, plastic toy (army man), etc.

2.  Open a plastic shopping bag by cutting down the side.  Spread bag out flat.

3.  Cut a square out of the plastic bag.

4.  Use the scissors to make a small hole in each corner of the square.

5.  Tie a 1 foot section of string to each of the four corners of the square.

6.  Gather the four strings (already tied to the corners) and tie them in  a knot approximately 3 inches above the end of the string.

7.  Tie a small toy or rock to the parachute using the 3 inches of string below the knot.

8.  Throw the parachute up in the air or drop it from a high location and watch it fall.

Is That Your Natural Color? (Make Your Own Easter Egg Dye)

My family traditionally has an Easter Day Egg-stravaganza where we dye dozens and dozens of eggs in every color of the rainbow.  This year rather than purchasing a dye kit,  I'm going to have everyone color eggs with dyes that we can make ourselves.  Not only will this more natural and eco-friendly, but it will be a fun science experiment for the kids. 

I thought I'd share the recipes that I'm planning to try to achieve various colors.  Many of these DIY recipes were obtained from Kiwi magazine.

Trash To Treasure: St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun Traps

If you’re kids are anything like mine, they’ve been counting down the days until March 17^th – St. Patrick’s Day, of course.  Tonight is when the leprechauns come out in numbers to celebrate and hunt for gold.  My kids love to make contraptions to try to trap one of the little buggers so they can get him to confess where his gold is hidden.  I take advantage of this opportunity to re-purpose some of our trash.  For the trap, you can use cereal boxes, Kleenex boxes, empty yogurt cups, old plates, bubble wrap, paper bags, and whatever else inspires you.  You can also use items from nature:  sticks, rocks painted gold, etc. 

Below are some photos of traps we’ve made.  Although, you may not want to copy our designs, as we have yet to capture a leprechaun…

Freebie Alert: Beech-Nut Baby Starter Kit

Beech-Nut baby food is made with all-natural ingredients and contains no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.  While not certified "organic", Beech-Nut has very strict standards to keep presticide residues to negligible or non-detectable levels, making their products comparable to those containing organically grown produce.

Right now, Beech-Nut is offering a free Starter Kit, which includes 2 free jars of baby food and a coupon for a free box of cereal, when you sign up for their monthly eNewsletter.

Freebie Alert: HAPPYBABY Product

HAPPYBABY makes premium organic meals that come in eco-friendly packaging.  From now until March 25^th, if you take the Generation Happy Pledge on Facebook, you will receive a coupon (via email) for a free HAPPYBABY product.  Their products can be found at Target and Whole Foods, amongst other places.  Click here to find out more about this offer.

Freebie Alert: Episencial Protective Face Balm -- EXPIRED

Episencial has recently been featured on various tv shows (Good Morning America, CBS Early Show) as having a top skincare product line.  Their products have organic, immune-system boosting ingredients. In addition, the products are packaged in recycled and sustainable materials, and manufactured using solar power.  Natural goodness for your family and the environment. 

Visit the Episencial website today to watch a video and learn more about their products.   If you take a short quiz, they will send you a free full-sized Protective Face Balm.

The Jewel Case

As MP3 players and iTunes dominate the music scene now, many of us are left with a stack of abandoned CD’s and/or jewel cases.  Or you may have transferred all of your CD’s to a disc organizer and are left with a pile of empty jewel cases.  The jewel cases are made of PVC (poly-vinyl chloride), which is extremely difficult to recycle; hence, most standard recycling facilities won’t accept them.   You have a few options: 

1.        If you have the CD’s, you can sell them on the internet on a site such as half.com.  Or you can sell them to a used music store in your area.

2.       If you have only the jewel cases, consider donating them to a used music store in your area.  They are always in need of extra jewel cases to replace cracked ones that people trade-in.  

3.       You can re-purpose them.  There are several craft ideas that use jewel cases (picture frames, desk calendar, etc).  One that I really like is a jewel case scrapbook, shown in the picture below.

Customize My Sled -- The Green Way

The kids had a few days off school last weekend and they decided that they wanted to go sledding at Grandpa's house.  Remember those plastic sleds that you would use for sledding when you were younger?  Well, unfortunately I didn't remember ours.  We have several of them in the garage being used as triplines; and I was supposed to put a couple in the car when we were leaving.  But 15 minutes into our drive, my youngest son asked where the sleds were.  Of course, it was at that exact moment that I realized, I forgot to grab them.  So I had a decision to make: 

1. Go back and get the sleds -- this would waste 30 minutes of drive time, burn an extra gallon of gas, and release unecessary emissions into the environment
2. Stop at a store and buy a new sled -- this would take time, would waste money, and I'd be buying more processed plastic which is not good for the environment
3. Make our own custom sleds -- this would be free any additional time required would be spent with Grandpa