Green at School

How To Teach Your Children to Have an Eco-Friendly Christmas

It is great that you have decided to go green this year for Christmas. However, are you also teaching your kids how to be green for the holiday too? This is the way to make a lasting impression on the earth. Teach the whole family how to be eco-friendly for Christmas and all year through. For this article though we will give you some ideas for Christmas that you and the kids can do to have it green. Baking Using Organic Ingredients Baking is a great family activity to do with the kids. It is even better when you use only organic ingredients in your baked goods. Give the local farmers your business and buy their fresh produce, even the eggs can be organic remember. Teach your kids the reasoning behind organic foods such as no pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Also the kids can learn how to measure the various ingredients into the dishes you are cooking which can help them with their math. Ornaments from Recycled Paper You and your kids will enjoy making paper snowflakes; you know the kind you used to cut out as a child. Instead of regular paper made from wood pulp though, use paper made from plant fibers ...

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Teaching Young Children about Pond Life

Ponds are fascinating places.  They can be small ecosystems, with all life forms supporting and dependent on each other.  Young children enjoy discovering interesting things in nature, and finding a pond to explore can be the first step in developing a love for nature. Ponds are more accessible than you may think.  Hiking in the woods will often reveal puddles or other areas of still water that can certainly be classified as ponds.  You may have a neighbor with a pond on his or her property, or you may have one available in your own yard.  Even urban dwellers can create a pond by putting a container out to catch rain water and leaving it undisturbed for a week or more.  Wind, rain, and visiting creatures will deposit some sort of life form (eggs, spores, etc.) as the water sits undisturbed. Before beginning to teach young children about pond life, check out some good books at your local library that are appropriate for your age group.  Depending on the age of your kids, notebooks and other means of recording observations are helpful.  Regularly visit the pond and record what you and the children see, keeping an eye out for those creatures you ...

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The Future of Green Toys

For any business savvy person that is looking for a good green investment, look no further than green children's toys.  There are a lot of possibilities in this market field with many signs that are showing future expansion.  Green toys are becoming steadily popular with children all over the place.  These types of toys offer much more in the way of safety than other toys that comes in from other countries containing led paint.  Green toys also do not have small parts that may become choking hazards as other toys do.  As the sales for green toys keeps increasing, the future continues to look brighter and brighter.  There are many companies now investing in green toys and the future market for these things should be booming.  Wal-Mart is among these companies that are investing in green toys, which is another good sign that there is a future in this.  There have been news estimates predicting that the market will be a $1 billion dollar market this year coming up. Green toys are also made from recycled materials and pose no threat to the environment.  All materials that are used in green toys are natural, like bamboo.  These toys are hardy, very ...

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Used Cardboard Boxes

Cereal boxes, cracker boxes, shoe boxes, delivery or shipping boxes and more.  That sure is a whole lot of boxes!  We might not notice it but after the contents of these boxes are taken out or used up, they usually are left sitting in the corners of our house or it goes directly to the trash bin. There is an overwhelming amount of cardboard box production.  Considering the environmental impacts of paper production and how much damage it has caused to our planet.  Paper manufacturers have been a major source of the accumulation of toxic chemicals.  These chemicals are used in paper making.  There is mass energy and water consumption for producing paper using up a huge amount of water and electricity.  It also has contributed to air pollution, production of solid waste materials and has done much damage to our forests.  Deforestation happens because for years the paper industry has depended upon paper pulp from forests endangering the ecological balance.  Let’s take into consideration some facts about cardboard boxes: First, over 90% of products in the United States are shipped using cardboard boxes and 70% is recovered for recycling.  This type of packaging allows fewer resources by doing away with any ...

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Going Green - Arts and Crafts Report

Searching around your home can lead you to discover many things you can convert into crafts.  Reusing items which you may otherwise discard can also be acceptable to the environment.  Things like buttons, cans, magazines, shoe boxes, tissue boxes, and cereal boxes can be utilized in making worthwhile projects of arts and crafts. A good example of a recycled project would be converting a cereal box into a file or magazine clipper perhaps.  You need to first cut off the top portion of the box, and then cutting off the narrow side of the cereal box to simulate a file or folder holder.  You should cut about 4 to 5 inches down from below the box.  After you have simulated the shape of a magazine clipper, you can then either decorate it or paint it to enhance its appearance.  You can paste art paper or beautiful stickers all around it, and with the finished product, you can organize your magazines, files, and important papers in it. The humble looking tissue box, when it gets empty already, can be turned into a sort of small plastic bag container.  You can first decorate it as you would like, then enlarge the hole a little ...

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