Category : Eco Kids Party
I’ve been wanting to plan a scavenger hunt for years! It seems like the coolest way to keep kids entertained, spend time in nature, and host an outdoor themed party or activity. After hosting my son’s 10th birthday party and organizing a great scavenger hunt over the weekend, I realized that until you put your own special touch into the hunt, it becomes easier and fun to plan. I’m going to give you a cheat sheet so that you can organize a fun scavenger hunt quickly – even make it a fun weekend activity for the family. I discovered that scavenger hunts are a special way to unite older kids with nature and that is so important in this world where our kids seem too busy with sports and electronics to properly engage.
You first need to ask yourself, “what is your goal with the scavenger hunt?” I wanted my son’s friends to be able to run free, climb, make noise, engage and learn during the scavenger hunt. When kids are enjoying themselves and have the opportunity to learn something, especially facts about nature, I think it’s magical. So my first task was to find a place that met the criteria for this scavenger hunt. My entire family went and walked through a park with old growth trees, lots of ponds and streams, an easy trail, and not super busy so that the hunt would be relatively un-interrupted. While we were walking through the trail where the hunt would be setup, I tried to find subtle things in nature that you would only notice if you were searching. . . a field of baby ferns (snap – took a picture), a tree in the shape of a √ mark, a tree that looked like it had a face, a pipe sticking out of the earth, a distinctive toadstool, etc. Each mark along the forest I took pictures…more to remind myself of these clues once I got home. Later these pictures would be printed and were the bonus items for the kids to ‘seek’ in the scavenger hunt.
So now I had a place where kids could explore water, climb, and run free. . . but I also know my audience and knew that might not be enough. If there’s one thing I’ve learned raising boys, a physical challenge or activity is always a great idea. I only did three of these activities, but wish I had done a couple more. They were by far the highlight for me to watch and the kids to complete. I ripped up a sheet and a bolt of fabric and made fabric strips. These were used to mark the trees which look amazing in the forest! The fabric markers are great for the environment because they don’t cause damage to the trees and can easily be removed after the hunt is over. Each team was told to look for a different color of fabric so they didn’t mix-up their tasks. Here is how the fabric markers looked – I added a heart graphic because I love them.
When team 2 saw these green tree markers they knew a clue was nearby. At the base of three trees there were clues to:
1) Pickup a stack of burlap sacks under the clue, nominate 3 kids (there were 3 sacks) and these kids had to jump along the forest in the burlap sack until they reached the next clue. Watching the kids jump along the forest floor in their sacks was pretty awesome and a very popular activity!
2) At the next fabric marker, I left a tape measure under the clue card and the team had to measure the width of the tree and record the measurement in cm and inches.
3) The last marker was next to a creek with a fallen log. The team had to cross the log and if the person got even a drop of water on them…another team member had to complete the challenge. This was a big highlight too!
A few other ideas that would be great scavenger hunt activities are: have the team complete a leaf rubbing, measure an old growth tree with their bodies and count how many kids it takes to measure the tree, and/or remove the tree marker and select two kids to have a three-legged race to the next tree marker. Here is a picture of some burlap sack racing along the forest from my son’s party:
While each team was walking through the forest they had a book to record 4 sets of criteria: seek, find, listen, collect. It kept them busy and each team member kept passing around the check list of items to be searching for – great team work. Here are a few samples of my favorite from each category:
Seek! It’s important to tell kids that items to seek should not be touched or removed from the forest.
◊ animal tracks – what animal was it? ________________
◊ something faster than a snail
◊ poo – doesn’t matter what kind. (lots of laughter finding this one)
◊ item that begins with the first letter of the birthday child’s name
◊ a nurse log
◊ an old growth tree (takes at least three kids to wrap their arms around)
Find! These items were placed in a cloth bag and they are okay to be removed from the forest because they are no longer alive:
◊ fern
◊ bark
◊ a heart shaped rock
◊ a rock the size of the birthday boy’s hand
◊ feather
◊ a river rock (smooth)
Listen! At different intervals while we would stop and listen. When all the group members stopped talking we’d hear lots of noises that otherwise would have missed:
◊ a bird song
◊ running water
◊ people talking
◊ leaves crunching
◊ cards driving
◊ frogs
◊ crickets
Collecting! This was my favorite because each group was given a plastic bag and items that shouldn’t be in nature were to be placed inside. Basically these kids were cleaning up the litter from the forest during this portion of the hunt! Teams could list out each item they collected and then add why it didn’t belong in nature in their book, but we just discussed it every time something was found..rather than writing it down.
The last portion of the hunt I completed with my team at the 1/2 way mark. The planning of this Q&A portion of the scavenger hunt was so much fun for me because I called my local Parks Board and asked for their help. I wanted a ‘fun facts’ section of the scavenger hunt that would be interesting for the kids and also teach them awesome forest facts! I thought it was important to call my local parks board rather than just using Google so that the information would be related to the forest they were searching. Here are a sample of the questions and answers – aren’t they interesting?
1) What animal in the forest is known for their ‘super glue’? (Answer: if you run your finger along a slug, wave it in the air so the slime gets tacky, then put your finger against a rock, it will stick to the glue. Try it but be gentle to the slug!)
2) Name three tree types in the park.
3) How many mosquitoes can a bat eat in 1 hour a) 30 b) 200 or c) 600. The answer is 600.
4) Eagles use the same nest ever year – they just keep adding to it. At the end of their life, would the nest weight as much as a car? Circle Y or N. (The answer is Yes)
5) True or False. A strand of spider web is stronger than an equal thickness strand of steel. (Answer is True).
I remembered the first fact about the slug after a forest tour we did years ago. The rest came from a very stunned forest guide that had a crazed mother calling him on a Friday afternoon asking for help with her scavenger hunt. <grin> You gotta use facts that are interesting for kids and I thought these were great!
At the end of the scavenger hunt we probably could have tallied up the sheets, plastic collected, and questions answered but I didn’t. The boys had a great time, I loved watching them, and since we were at a park, the boys ate sandwiches and then played outdoor hockey and soccer before going home. Lots of fresh air, teamwork, and fun. The loot bags contained wooden decoders so the adventure inspired fun could continue after the party guests went home! I hope these steps give you a general guide of how to create a really fun scavenger hunt, but the most important part is to personalize it yourself!
There is one part to setting up Easter egg hunts on Easter morning that I always miss – the fact my kids can’t help me set up. When planning fairy walks or party activities my kids are always right by my side planning and then executing – they love it! So today while my kids where all home we came up with the idea to leave Easter eggs filled with sustainable goodie along the Inlet trail and park in our community. We used 8 plastic eggs we’ve been reusing for years and filled them with a felt pirate eye patch, finger puppets, basil seeds, felted jewelry, and a fairy leaf bed/pilllow set. We used plastic for the outside to hold the treasures because we hoped the eggs would be safe for a few days out in our rainy West Coast climate. I highly recommend this activity for kids with the excitement building up to Easter hunts, activities, etc. but strongly petition you to please not fill them with junk! Even a couple of pennies or treasures from the forest would be fun: acorns, gem stones, etc. Just the magic of finding an egg in a playground with a note and goodie inside would be amazing for kids. Funny enough we talked with two adults that found one of our eggs under a park bench and they were beaming. Not just little smiles, you could tell their day had been made! They turned out to be kindred spirits of the Peter Pan syndrome I have “never wanting to grow up and believing in fairies”.
Here is how we planned our random act of kindness egg hunt!
Egg setup. We selected plastic eggs to reduce moisture for the goodies inside. I let the kids select Eco-friendly presents to put inside based on their personalities. I didn’t want them to put candy inside because most parents would want their kids eating candy left by strangers…so we selected handcrafted, mostly felt or plantable treasures. I used new items from Green Planet Parties and included the logo in the note we left, not for marketing purposes, but so that parents would know that these items are new and safe to play with. The note simply read: “You are receiving a random gift of kindness. Enjoy your Easter treat and consider leaving one for someone else to find!”
Egg planting. We decided to walk through the forest in our local inlet that leads to a park and pier. The kids were very exited to leave the eggs in tricky spots for other children to find in the perimeter of the park. The boys watched a pair of kids find one of their eggs and loved listening to the shriek of finding a treasure and having them rush off to show their mom.
Here is a picture of the first egg we planted in the forest. The rest of the eggs that were planted along the trail looked beautiful too!
We don’t know who found those eggs we left in the forest (walking back along the trail we noticed most of the eggs had been picked up already). But the best reaction of the day was from hiding this egg under a bench along the pier:
We had tied the egg under bench and then ambled down the pier. We took our time looking in the water, checking out a boat anchored and when we got to the end of the pier there were two lovely ladies and they looked tickled…but I didn’t assume they found the egg because we had just left it under the bench. They watched my kids play and showed them the felt eye patch they had found in the egg..my kids smiled and said they were the ones that put it there! These two adults just loved the experience and they had already paid it forward and left some change in the egg and re-hidden it. So much fun! I think it’s adults that need a bit of magic in their lives. We are always knocking ourselves out to insert magic whenever we can for our kids…but adults need to see magic too. The adults seemed to have the best reaction to this idea and it’s something that is really fun. This time of year is a great time to leave random acts of kindness and the best part is you can use eggs!
An important point here is that egg fillers do not have to be a plastic, crappy, toxic affair. Here are some earth friendly ideas that actually fit inside standard eggs!
Felt Finger Puppets
Pirate Eye Patches
Felted Rings
Felted Ponytail Holders
Seeds – we left basil seeds
Wooden eggs
Felt Moustache
Pocket Doll
Fairy Leaf Bed and Pillow
Fair Trade Worry Dolls
Wooden Decoder
Felted Toadstool
Bird Call
Felt Dressup Watch
Remember to have fun and tailor the act of kindness to something close to your family’s heart! Let us know about the stories you discover with leaving random acts of kindness on the Mommy Footprin fan page!
A few weeks ago my twins celebrated their 6th birthday. We incorporated a really special party craft that I wanted to share for a few reasons: it is basically compostable, so party guests can return it to the earth when it gets ratty looking, the amount of imagination it inspired with the kids was amazing, and the supplies required where found for the most part in the forest. I am always totally inspired every time I walk into a West Coast forest – the amount of moss, ferns, and toadstools right now is breathtaking. I wanted a way to bring some of this beauty into the party give aways at the twins party. I mean really, it would just be too easy to go into the Green Planet Parties warehouse and start pulling out magical items. I wanted to challenge myself and incorporate a few of the fairy items from this popular category on the site, but also input some creativity. So voila – the concept of creating compostable fairy houses and wooden dolls was born and the effect was quite magical. So here is how you can construct the ultimate craft with a fairy themed soiree!
Collecting Supplies For Compostable Fairy Houses:
This was my favorite part of the craft. I got the opportunity to walk into our local Mall and rather than walking out with purchased goods, I went to all of the shoe stores and asked them for empty shoe boxes. Shoe stores collect many empty boxes during the day from customers that opt out of taking them home. They are just broken down and recycled, but I managed to collect close to 20 over a 2-day period. I would advise getting regular sized shoe boxes…not big ones from boots. Here is what the stack of boxes looked like pre-party.
After we had boxes collected (1 box per party guest), we headed into the forest and started collecting our nature. The bottom of each shoe box was going to be lined with moss. It’s easy to find thick, wet, beautiful moss in our local forest so we collected our moss and fallen twigs. Moss to line the bottom of the box and twigs to create rugs and ladders for inside the fairy house and fallen ferns to create a pretty design inside the house. I thought the ferns might look nice in small section in the fairy house glued to the side of the walls to give a shutter or the allusion of window blinds.
Making Wooden Fairies for Fairy Garden:
We then decided to include a wooden clothespin fairy for the girls to decorate inside their fairy house. We used all upcycled materials for these that included: wooden clothespins, tissue paper for wings, sharpie to draw faces and hair, fabric scraps to make clothing. We pre-painted faces (I did the faces and my girls did the hair) onto the clothespin dolls and we loved how they turned out. The ladies are whispering below how excited they are to get dressed and have a rest on their leaf bed.
The ladies continued to chat to each other about how they wanted to be dressed. Also included in the below picture is some inspiration to avoiding glitter to decorate the fairy wands. We found glass beads and glued them to the middle of the wooden wands (same beads we used for the pond) – loved the effect!
In order to ‘dress’ the fairies, we cut out rectangular strips of tissue paper. We slid the tissue paper up the clothespin opening, then fanned out wings. Then the girls used Green Glue and glued on the little bits of clothing I had pre-cut. The effect was lovely and I wanted the party guests to have a doll and some quality pieces from inside the house that they could play with for a long time. Here is a dressed doll after one of our guests finished gluing on clothes.
Putting Together Fairy Houses:
After the party guests finished making a doll, they painted a few quality pieces that would be reused from the fairy house (the shoebox, moss and twig pieces could later be composted) and they included, fairy doors and beds from Green Planet Parties. The beds had huge impact with the girls because they were able to lay their newly acquired fairy dolls and put them to sleep inside the box. Here are the fairy doors that each party guests painted.
A great idea if using a fairy door for your fairy house is to cut out an opening in the shoe box where the fairy door can be placed. It’s the entry point for all the magic inside the house to be contained! I did this for a few of the guests and they loved the effect!
While the guests were painting fairy doors and wooden wands, I was getting another table ready for the completion of the houses. The guest had their shoebox ready with moss inside, a leaf bed w/ pillow and twig ladder next to it to put inside the box, the fairy they had decorated, I put the guest’s name on the box, then they walked over with their fairy door and wand that was put into the box to dry. They started looking like this:
Another extra I had waiting to put into the box were blue glass rocks. Once a few were added to the corner of a fairy house it looked like a pond where the fairy could have a swim later.
Voila! Close the lid and the fairy garden/house/doll is ready to go home when your party guests. I wrote names on the outside of each box so it was easy when guests were picked up to find their box. With the shoe box lids closed, I loved watching the reaction of parents (probably thinking why is she giving me this?) but then I looked them in the eye and said “compostable fairy house” and the adult’s eyes lit up because they knew these take home gifts were something different and unique.
Prep time for these fairy boxes should be about two weeks before the actual party. You want to enjoy the process of going into the forest and searching for treasures. Try to find sticks, leaves, acorns that have already fallen onto the forest floor. One idea we had was to collect acorns and glue them to the head of each fairy doll but there weren’t any in our area this time of year. It would have been a cute accent but I love how the faces on the dolls turned out. A glue gun really came in handy with making the twig ladders – I would have loved to make and hang some windows with twigs in each box too. Using the glue gun also allowed me to not have to use glitter with decorating the wands. By adding a glass bead to the centre of the wooden wands, the girls just added some paint to them and we by-passed using glitter. I try to stay away from it because it’s plastic. I didn’t want this getting into the compostable materials inside the box.
We had a little over 15 party guests and it’s doable, but a smaller number of children is probably recommended for this craft. I divided the kids up into 2 groups otherwise it would have been overwhelming to orchestrate all of the little steps. It’s fun when you can take the time to listen to the kids and have them decide what all of the materials will be in their house: carpets from sticks, windows, ponds – very fun!
I write this article not as the owner of Green Planet Parties, but as a mom of two adorable little girls and a person with a serious Peter Pan complex; never want to grow up and someone that believes that fairies are real!
Greening celebrations & Halloween is a hot topic this year. One aspect of party planning that many hosts struggle to green is when using disposable tableware, specifically at children’s parties and Halloween. But we’ve made advances in biodegradable and compostable disposable tableware options and it’s never been easier to keep the fun and excitement and the environmental impact low at these celebrations. Don’t believe me? Check out the awesome pictures of bagasse plates stamped with beet juice at the bottom of this post.
Halloween parties don’t have to be a wasteful affair – make a goal to host a little or no-waste party. We’ve already talked about Halloween decorating so lets talk tableware. I agree that some of the printed/licensed napkins, plates and cups are adorable for Halloween, but it’s important to green this aspect of party planning. With the proper Eco-friendly tabletop accents**, this is the easiest area to green and guests will love the effect of earth friendly disposable tableware! Using your own dishware is the best way to booster your green with party planning, but this isn’t always a practical option. We host an annual Halloween party and I know with over 20 kids running through my house, there’s no way I’m giving them my everyday dishes. Here are some Eco-friendly options for disposable tableware & some spooky facts you’ll want to learn about traditional cups and plates..
Hot Cups:
Bring out the hot chocolate or apple cider, but make sure you’re using hot cups lined with PLA. Traditional paper hot cups are lined with petroleum-based resin. Ever wondered why you get that nasty after taste after you’ve purchased a coffee or hot drink from a cafeteria or store? This is plastic melting and being absorbed into your body. Compostable hot cups are a great addition to your next party because the interior resin of the cups is lined with PLA (poly lactic acid) which is derived from renewable resources such as sugarcane and starches (corn).
We all know styrofoam cups (styrofoam anything for that matter) are terrible for the environment. But if we truly understood their destruction many of us, including myself, would stand up and make more noise when we see it being used. I ran across this description of styrofoam used by the Wonkette talking about the U.S. Capitol bringing styrofoam back into their cafeteria after banning it for 4 years. Sometimes it’s great to have a description that doesn’t sugar coat to stick into our minds if a business or event service needs a reminder about how bad styrofoam is. Quote from Wonkette:
“Foamed polystyrene” is a miraculous invention that manages to be completely awful through every step of its near-eternal “life cycle” — it is manufactured with petroleum that must be imported from Middle East dictatorships, toxic “styrene oligomers” migrate into the food it holds, it’s highly flammable and produces black poisonous smoke, and most of the 25 billion polystyrene cups tossed every year will take more than half a millennium to degrade.
Sometimes it takes shocking statistics to really reinforce that these products should never been used because of the environmental consequences. Let’s also not forget that polystyrene is a strong plastic that is ‘foamed’ into Styrofoam. I sometimes forget that Styrofoam is plastic because of the different texture but it’s polystyrene created from erethylene and benzine that is inject or blow molded. Do you want to pour hot liquid into this soup of plastic materials?
Plates:
Traditional Halloween disposable party plates hmmmmm pick your evil a) licensed paper plates made from virgin trees and inked with toxic dye 2) Styrofoam plates that are devastating to the environment 3) plastic plates that take forever to biodegrade and often end up polluting our forests and water. Now think about using compostable plates. Not only are they biodegradable, but also compostable as they are made from excess plant materials that otherwise would have gone to waste! The first option for plates is perfect for Halloween, not because they are scary, but fit into the theme of Fall beautifully because palm leaf plates are manufactured from fallen leaves. It is very cool to tell a child that a leaf fell from a tree, was picked up for a villager, cleaned with die, and shaped into a plate. Little children and all party guests will understand this story and love learning how palm plates are made without any disruption to the tree and because they are made without dyes, wax, finishes of any kind ~ they are compostable and a very earth friendly option with party tableware. An other option with biodegradable and compostable plates are those made from bagasse which is a fibrous pulp that is left over after processing sugar cane. A cool story as well because this material would have otherwise been turned into waste and again, no trees are used in the manufacturing of these plates. So although they are stamped ‘tree free’ along the edge, guests may assume they are a paper plate because of the color and texture. Make sure to inform party guests about the bagasse plates so they don’t assume they are made from paper. One way to catch guests attention is to personalize these party plates. I use beet juice to dye the homemade play dough I made my children. This way I get a brightly colored play dough using vegetable dye rather than brightly colored play dough from using synthetic food coloring. Well why not stamp your bagasse plates with a rubber stamp and beet juice? You are using a natural dye to make these plates look different that will create some buzz and questions. It’s also super fun for the kids! My niece and I tried this tonight and the results were fantastic. She also loved learning how an organic substance like beet juice should be used to stamp with because you wouldn’t want any other material like traditional ink a guest’s plate that will contain food. The texture of the bagasse plates is great for absorbing the beet juice and also makes for very strong plates.
** Tabletop accents. We’ve decided on a mixture of ways to dress-up our Halloween tabletop for this year’s party. We are painting little pumpkins and gourds from our local patch and making them into ghosts and black cats. We’ve also sprinkled some pine cones and crazy shaped gourds from the patch. Felt appliques that act as reusable confetti are also a great way to punch up a table.
This post is part of the 2011 Greening your Halloween Blog Tour brought to us by Green Planet Parties, Green Halloween, Green Gift Guide, Surf Sweets and A Little Bit of Momsense.
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Halloween…How Will You Green?
Halloween, pumpkins, leaves – this season represents the best time of year in my house. My children are excited and look forwards to the October visits to local farms, pumpkin patches, or nature walks, and my favorite parenting memories usually contain a swirl of Autumn colors in memory backdrops. Because my family loves the Halloween season so much I’ve had to be creative with greening this month so not to dampen the excitement and energy. We bought a lot of Halloween plastic crap (that would be beloved crap to my children) when the boys were small. It’s not something I would invest in today, being more green-minded, but along the way, I’ve managed to incorporate some concepts with reusing and being creative this time of year and wanted to share. Early. Greening Halloween takes a bit of time which is why this article is being published while we’re still in September. Greening your life takes a lot of impulse control and leaving decorating, costume shopping, etc. until the last minute will have you making rushed decisions without having the luxury of thinking about sustainability with this holiday.
Halloween decor:
Yes, the scariest decorations are not going to be made from felt or organics. If you need to add outdoor Holiday decor – purchase a decoration that will last and can be reused for many years. Many people are looking to downsize their Halloween collections – always check Craig’s List first to purchase decorations that are not made from Eco-friendly materials.
Have a wooden outdoor structure locally made! My favorite decoration sits on our front lawn and is a huge wooden pumpkin (approx. 7 feet high x 6 feet wide) that was made by a local carpenter for my family. Where did I find Randy? I visited our local pumpkin patch the first weekend it was open…they always have the best wooden Fall themed structures and I asked for the contact number of who made it. Voila – I got to work with Randy years ago and it produced a wonderful decoration! It also doubled as a party game when my kids were younger because the pumpkin eyes, nose, and smile had holes big enough that we’d bring it inside for a bean bag toss game. The best thing about this decoration is how I can simply compost it when it starts falling apart. See below picture for an example of wooden decorations found at a pumpkin patch – this would look great in front of a house!
Greening decorations is a big part of making Halloween more sustainable. It’s important to know that the wall decals sold at dollar stores for Halloween for indoor decorating are made from PVC. Yes, these will off-gas when first applied to the wall so we keep these out of kids rooms, etc. when we reuse them each year. I have noticed more options available for wall appliques in stores this year made from non-toxic materials – paper, etc. For decorating a nook in your home or classroom, these garlands from my company Green Planet Parties are sweet and the burlap banners have been very popular to string outside across windows or porches.
Costumes:
We have a fair number of costumes from years of hosting Halloween parties. This year, thanks to the great tips from Green Halloween, I started a Facebook Group and invited friends to join a costume swap. Creating a Facebook Group only took a few minutes and I asked people if they had costumes they want to sell, trade, or lend out to post on the wall. People are enthusiastic and it’s perfect for people like me that are too attached to let go costumes my kids have worn – I can feel good about lending them out so they get used and save a parent purchasing another single use item.
Party crafts:
Halloween crafting doesn’t have to be a wasteful activity. Reusing canning jars around the house makes fun specimen jars (you can get really creative with these). Another way to reduce waste is if you’re purchasing pumpkins early in the month, don’t carve them and keep them off the ground. Painting pumpkins is lots of fun for younger children and the pumpkins will last all month. We have a tradition of making ghost pumpkins from our first visit to the patch each year. My kids LOVE this activity and now that I’ve found earth friendly acrylic paint, I’ll be trying my first every black cat pumpkin this year. . . stay tuned.
Candy:
If you are looking to avoid traditional Halloween candy without artificial ingredients – check out Surf Sweet treats. They are delicious so your kids won’t roll their eyes with these organic goodies. Other great facts about this brand are:
~made with organic sweeteners, including organic fruit juice
~ excellent source of Vitamin C
~ candy made without corn syrup and GMOs
~ produced and packaged in a facility free of the 10 most common allergens
~ socially responsible and my favorite manufactures the candy in Canada and the US! Yes!
Starting early is the key to greening any celebration. Plan your Halloween activities, costumes, decorating early and think about adding locally manufactured and sustainable products if you need new holiday gear this October. Or try making a costume or decoration new again from borrowing from a friend. Please post ideas you have for making this ‘tough to green’ holiday a little more earth friendly.
This post is part of the 2011 Greening your Halloween Blog Tour brought to us by Green Planet Parties, Green Halloween, Green Gift Guide, Surf Sweets and A Little Bit of Momsense.
