Category : Eco Kids Projects
I’ve often said that if I spent everyday at my childrens’ preschool, I’d be writing daily for Mommy Footprint. The inspiration and wonderful ideas that come from this play-based, magical school have been a wonderful experience for my family over the last 6 years. Two of my favorite ideas that come from preschool have been around forever, but since I setup both in my house last week, I’m reminded just what great ideas they are from the amount of time all of my kids spend playing with them. And both are very low cost to setup!
Wooden Stump & Nails
Ever drive by a house that has cut down a tree and is offering the stumps/logs for free? Well next time, stop and pick one up because your children will love to hammer nails into the stump. Both my boys and daughters have loved this activity at preschool and we’ve recently picked up a stump and ball pein hammer that I picked up at my local hardware store. The ball pein hammer is normally smaller, lighter and has a ball and opposite flat face..much easier for small children. And by small children I mean 3 years olds and up. They are more than able at that age to hammer nails into wood and the stumps help the nails slide in so easily! It will keep them busy for hours and teach them great motor skills. You can teach children to hammer thin pieces of wood to attach to the stump or even cardboard once they get bored of just hammering nails. Also, pickup nails of all sizes to further encourage fine motor skill development.
If you are nervous and think your toddler or child is too young to use real nails, find golf tees and left over Styrofoam packing from large appliances. Using the ball pein hammer, kids can hammer golf tees into the packing material and you don’t have to worry about them using real nails.
Sand Table
It’s a standard in any preschool and there’s a good reason why – sand tables are wonderful. When I received my package of safe sand from Santastik, I knew what I was going to use it for….creating an indoor sand table. The sand is amazing and kids love to play with it. We added some animals, scoops, cups, and the sand into a long flat plastic container and all my kids have enjoyed playing with it. I just put the container on top of their play table and voila…they are all very happy. And unlike the bean table I set up years ago (my husband still curses that idea), the sand table is very easy to clean up. Yes, kids get excited and throw the sand around, but the Sandtastik sand is super easy to vacuum so the mess is a non-issue. To find out why I’m recommending the Sandtastik brand of play sand – check out this article. This sand is made without carcinogens or asbestos which might be found in other brands of sand.
I love my kid’s preschool. We’ve been there 6 consecutive years because of the close ages of our 4 children and although I’m very sad this time is coming to an end this Spring, I’m grateful for the many lessons the teachers have taught me. A parent participation/play based preschool will not only bring your children great memories – but you’ll be surprised how much as parents you will learn.
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It’s no secret I love fairies. I dressed up as Peter Pan last Halloween and I relate to this classic character in so many ways. Being the owner and having a creative outlet like Green Planet Parties has been a gift – the ability to reach a large audience of parents looking to make better environmental choices at their children’s birthday parties is wonderful. I’d like to share the planning and results of my twin daughters greener birthday party and the hope was to capture the magic of a fairy walk, through our nearby woods and test our woodland creativity. I’m writing about this party because when I was researching forest walk party ideas on the internet…I started to feel nervous because the elaborate and beautiful examples I was reading through were out of my budget and amount of time I had to make some magic happen. The results from our fairy party were amazing and although many of the Green Planet Parties fairy products were integrated into the forest walk and eye-spy – I also used my imagination and borrowed items from friends which is attainable for anyone planning a fairy themed or woodland party. A very talented photographer lent her eye and captured some great pictures and her name is Tamsen Ogden. You can view the all the pictures on the updated Gallery page of Green Planet Parties located here.
The forest setup and eye-spy was the best part of my day. I had my sons to help me and it was so much fun climbing trees to string felt garland to mark the entrance way into the forest and the end of the walk. My boys loved helping attach the fairy window and fairy chimney to one of the trees in the forest. These were the first items to spot when the girls would enter the forest. They are such cute items….with the fairies having a window box with flowers and fireplace to enjoy inside the tree.
We collected and setup ‘gifts’ that the fairies might have left in the forest to show they are happy living in the trees and to also work as an eye-spy game to keep the young guests engaged. The length of the trail or forest walk would depend on ages and time-frame…our walk lasted about 10 minutes for each guest which was perfect for 4 and 5 year olds. Every 10 feet there would be a gift left by the fairies. There was a tea-set in an abandoned tree house built into the forest, felt acorn capped ornaments hanging from branches, a beautiful fairy house borrowed from a friend, wooden bird houses hanging in branches, a bucket of wooden wands that each little girl enjoyed keeping, and my favorite – the outdoor fairy door. These outdoor fairy doors have such huge W-o-W factor because they open, are a really big size (11″ high), are handcrafted with amazing quality, and treated so they are can be used in the garden after the party as a year-round decoration. Here are some pictures of these special fairy treasures.
Once the forest was setup, we led party guests to the entrance of the trail. The girls went into the forest in sets of two and were told to look for signs or gifts from the fairies. They had to remember these items and tell the helper at the end of the trail all the things they remembered. My niece helping wrote down the items that they remembered. I loved watching the reactions of party guests finding a hidden treasure in the forest and knocking softly on the fairy door. A few eco-friendly tips for setting up the fairy walk and helped keep things on budget was picking up a new paint can from a local paint store and painting the outside of it to hold the wooden wands. I loved the effect and thought that pinning fabric around the can would be beautiful too. I also wanted an earth friendly glitter to sprinkle and lead guests to magical forest items. Earth friendly glitter doesn’t exist because traditional glitter is produced from plastic and I didn’t want to be putting that on a forest floor so I hoe-punched seed paper. I loved the effect of having something contrasting with the soil that caught their eye (pictured in the fairy door photo). I didn’t have to worry about leaving any of this material behind once the party was finished because the paper is compostable and embedded with wild flower seeds.
My girls wore silk wings that are so incredibly earthy and they loved how the wings floated behind them when they ran through the forest. After the walk they seemed pretty happy with what the fairies created. After we arrived home the fairies were busy with more surprises. The tabletop was set with more earthy fun, starting with compostable heart shaped palm leaf plates, borrowed tea cups for lemonade and ice-tea, cloth tablecloth with acorn appliques, and two toadstool cakes that were made by a local bakery and decorated with wooden toys by the birthday girls. The only party decorations really needed inside were the name banners that are such high impact for adding a festive feel to a room. Both girls picked out their own fabrics and they loved the result – Green Planet Parties banners are a wonderful keepsake and heirloom decoration that will last for many birthday celebrations.
The goodie bags were really well received from parents and party guests. It’s always so refreshing for parents to receive loot bags that don’t contain plastic and dollar store items that tend to break right away. For the girls party I integrated the outdoor fairy vibe by using Toadstool cloth goodie bags containing organic sweets, butterfly kerchiefs, twig inspired pencils, and earth friendly notepads (made from 100% post consumer recycled material). It was wonderful to spend a few hours outside and although parties hosted at home are always lots of work, there is a big sense of pride when they are over. Parties hosted at home are probably a little darker shade of green that most parties because you’re able to utilize your own dishes, tablecloths, etc. I’m hopeful that this party is one my girls will always remember because just like them – it was unique, full of surprises, and a joy to be with!
I’m always in awe of talented people that create incredible hand-made items, but then to blog, design, photograph their creations and share their talents is very special. When visiting the Made By Joel blog, hours will pass and feel like minutes because you just keep clicking to read through his posts and you’ll feel very inspired to try Joel’s creations… even the ‘crafty challenged’. I’m always so motivated to buy power tools after visiting Joel’s blog but back in April when I read his post about Walnut boats I thought “finally, something very attainable for myself! Whoot!” It’s a classic craft perfect for keeping the kids entertained (it does involve flame after all) and the end product is a safe bath toy (harder and more expensive to find that you think). So after 9 months keeping my eyes to the ground trying to find discarded Walnut shells, we tried making walnut boats last weekend and it’s an awesome craft for kids. Even the older crowd that are tougher to entice with crafting enjoy it because mention lighting a candle and zoom – both my boys were in like a flash!
Any nut shell would work with this craft (the deeper the shell the better) even little acorns. But sticking with the tutorial we used walnut shells the squirrels at the park were nice enough to leave us, melted an old candle for wax, stuck in the toothpick and the kids drew really cute pirate skullies for the paper sail. After we had finished, they all immediately went flying off to sinks and the bathtub to try them out and I loved the result. Finally something that could go into the bath and I didn’t have to worry what they were bathing with. I wonder if beeswax candles would work this craft? I’ll have to try that next. One of my all time favorite crafts..quick and easy and keeps the kids attention. And the boats are a great little toy – even after the paper sails became wet and my girls pulled out their toothpicks, I saw my girls using the walnut shell (still filled with wax) and dropping them into their teapot and calling the boats their sugar cubes for tea. I loved listening to their dialogue as they clinked their tea cups, played in the bath tub, and sipped away.
I’ve attached a picture of Joel’s boats because his photography is stunning. These pictures are from the Made By Joel blog – I can’t wait to buy his book that is coming out Fall 2011 and will be keeping up with his work via his Facebook Fan page. Thanks for recording all the precious moments enjoying your talent with your kids Joel – awesome!
Related posts by Joel that I will try because he makes it look possible (haha we’ll see) are Branch Trees and Zip Line Toy. You know…we just might have a few Harry Potter figures kicking around here somewhere <wink> …and the zip line is just cool!
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I’m so happy to write about a long awaited eco-activity we’ve recently finished – building a fairy garden and fairy house. It’s been my 6 year old son urging me to help him make fairy furniture and design plans for the house which has been a very cool surprise…I always thought this would be something I’d create with my daughter’s so I’m thrilled my boys thought this was a fun idea. Creating the garden, furniture and house was so much easier thanks to the awesome tutorials at The Magic Onions. I’ve talked about this site before because it’s the ultimate resource for convincing non-crafty folk like myself that I can create some of nature’s magic with my own children.
It was so heart warming to me that one of my son’s was so determined to get this project off the ground. We had so much fun and I’m proud that all of the materials for the garden came from our yard or nearby forests…nothing needed to be purchased and borrowing a glue gun from my friend became another fun highlight for my kids (glue guns make crafting so much fun!). Our garden doesn’t come close to the artistic design that The Magic Onion achieves with her blog but check out the pictures at the end of this article – I think we did pretty good and even managed to create a new item that is the perfect accent for any fairy’s garden (hint: think acorns and hemp string).
I loved the idea of finding a wine barrel for the garden, but we used an over sized planter currently not being used. Whatever you use, make sure it’s large enough because your children will want to play with the garden when it’s completed. Also, have potting soil and make sure the container/planter/barrel has a hole in the bottom for drainage purposes because you’ll need to water your garden to keep the moss and flowers alive.
We didn’t draw out our our fairy garden before hand – but I do recommend it. Having your child map out on a sheet of paper where everything will go is a very magical step in the process and a great keep-sake. We filled up our planter with potting soil and dirt, pulled out a small flowering plant with roots intact from our main garden and replanted it in our fairy garden. Angelo found a plastic container to use for our fairy pond, then we put marbles around it with a path. Now came the fun – fairy doors, fairy furniture, and the fairy house! I followed all the instructions from The Magic Onions except for the one piece of decor within the fairy garden that was dreamed up by my sweet boy Angelo – lantern lights to hang high above the garden to light the way for fairies and gnomes. Angelo is always picking up acorns wherever we go – they are a staple item collected for his nature box. We used some hemp string and tied approx. 6 acorns together and attached to taller branches. These became our fairy lanterns ~ funny what ideas you start to imagine when you believe that fairies really do exist.
We really enjoyed making fairy furniture from the tutorials at The Magic Onions: fairy bath tub, fairy dining table, and our favourite the fairy’s washing line! This is the drying line where fairies leave their extra set of wings or dresses after they’ve been dampened by the morning dew. If you have tiny clothes pegs – that is best. For the clothing line – I used the annoying ties that you need to unwind when receiving a new toy. You know those grey ties that you fight with to ‘release’ the toy after your child unwraps it? Well my mom pointed out a few summers ago that she loves using them for tying back plants in the garden. I started saving them too because they do come in handy. They worked perfectly to tie around two sticks to create our clothing line. Here are our pictures:
After our fairy garden was complete we sat back and enjoyed our accomplishment for only a few days before Angelo decided that a house needed to be built. Thankfully, our wonderful friend Patti had many examples from her own adventures so we followed the fantastic model of no gluing, no tying to get our log house built. We simply cut approx. 20 sticks to the same size and built 4 walls (with a gap for a door) by pushing the sticks down into the soil of our fairy garden. Our roof and fairy door was made from tree bark; easy to break and mold into the shape needed for both. I love that Angelo went into the yard and was so excited that he found the perfect door knob for the fairy door – a dandelion top that hadn’t blossomed yet. It was perfect for a knob and we used the glue gun to attach it to the door. Very easy to build and our garden is almost complete. We used all materials that were already on-hand or found on a forest floor. The last surprise will be the little ladies and goodies I have arriving from The Enchanted Cupboard. I’ve long been a fan of artist and mom Beccijo who hand paints wooden treasures and has truly captured the magic of fairies and mermaids in her lovely Etsy shop.
Here are the final pictures from our fairy garden and house. So fun and hopefully a summer memory that my kids will always remember – I know I will.
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Have you ever heard of geocaching? Most people have heard of it but haven’t tried it. My first exposure to geocaching was reading a course description on my city’s parks board months ago. From that moment I was hooked. If you are looking for ways to keep children entertained wouldn’t the following description be enticing? “A worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure using technology.” Treasure hunting at any age ~ what’s not to like?
Unable to register my boys for the course – the wonderful geocaching duo behind Geocaching101 were introduced to me and spoiled myself and my boys to a personal introduction to Geocaching this afternoon. I wanted to share the experience immediately because it was so beneficial and rewarding. Literally, I’ve done nothing else but look up caches in my area since coming home from the outing. I can understand why there’s a warning on most geocaching sites about possible addictions. =) I think I’ve caught the bug and it’s great this new activity will be relatively inexpensive and so healthy for my children and family. For anyone struggling with keeping older kids entertained and away from TV, computers, and video games this summer – learning how to geocache may just be your ticket to enjoying the next few months outdoors.
Before I start on my rant about boys and electronics I’ll remember I’ve already written about this. It’s a daily battle with all my kids to keep them focused on nature and activities rather than jumping onto the computer or firing up the Wii. With geocaching it’s two wonderful worlds colliding for children – electronic GPS system (or iphone app) and treasure hunting in nature. Really, what isn’t to like? Only…in a child’s mind it gets better….they are hunting treasures. And this isn’t the point of geocaching and shouldn’t be an important part of your geocaching experience, but let’s just think like children for a moment ~ and once they are told they’ll be discovering treasure – they are very exited! Once you have loaded the coordinates into your GPS or iphone and located the cache – usually there is a log book so they can sign their name and swap trinkets. Yes, the trinkets are normally plastic because they need to be permeable to wet weather, but the children are simply thrilled by this aspect of geocaching. The thrill for many children and adults is the adrenaline rush of the ‘find’. Getting close to the cache, resisting the need to check the clue, then searching around for that perfectly hidden cache is the true thrill of geocaching. And it’s so exciting to find the cache…but knowing there are treasures inside was exciting for my boys today and we even found a cache located at a park 2 blocks from our house after we got home…without the asssitance of a GPS. Just putting our postal code into the ‘hide and seek’ section of the www.geocaching.com site we found a cache very easily and will try this route because we don’t have a GPS system or iphone. My boys left hockey cards and even my girls were excited by the treasures.
If this information feels overwhelming, just post a comment to this article and we’ll help you out. I slightly begged Anthony and Gwen to further develop private geocaching tours because I’d love to take my boys and their buddies (and parents) on a geocaching expedition. If you ask around your friend base, hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to find someone that can show you the geocaching ropes. Once you discover the magic – it’s hard to go back to being a Muggle. Umm yes, the activity of geocaching even has reference to ‘Muggles’ which as we know from Harry Potter refers to people that are non-wizards or in this case, non-geocachers. In the log notes that are left after discovering a cache, nearby people that aren’t aware of geocaching, are referred to as Muggles and in our house right now, there isn’t a more cool topic that anything referencing Harry Potter and wizards.
I will be writing more over the next few months on geocaching. I strongly urge any mom looking for an activity for children to register for free at the geocaching site: www.geocaching.com. First you create a free account, then you click on the ‘hide & seek a cache’ tab and submit your postal code. You’ll be surprised how close a cache may be to your home. Check it out by downloading to a GPS or using the iphone application or just try finding it on your own using Google Maps or the directions located within the cache. Here are some pictures and highlights of the fun we experienced this afternoon!
Locating our first cache. We were so lucky it was an official, large cache box – it had awesome clues and coordinates and funny enough – it was hidden near a spot my boys have played next to for years!
Another cache we found was hidden in the bottom of a 10 foot high tree stump and covered with a piece of bark. This type of coverage is referred to as geocaching bark – I’ll never look at carefully placed bark again without assuming there are treasures beneath it.
When I first read about geocaching I really assumed it was for older children. But after spending the day with Anthony & Gwen Floyd and @seanfunk’s family – I know that like anything…really fun activies that are discovered with an entire family are the best. We had toddlers on our geocaching tour today and they were incredibly well-behaved and excited by this activity. Read more about geocaching with toddlers here. The below picture is of Anthony with his little guy in the backpack - both were happy as could be!
Our 2nd to last cache found was a magnet stuck under a park bench. The two muggles that were sitting on the bench as over 10 people excitedly approached was pretty funny. They had no idea what we were doing – but Angelo was super excited to find a very small cache stuck underneath the bench.
I feel so lucky to be introduced to so many fun activities in a quest to keep my kids engaged in nature. Thank you to Gwen, Anthony, and @seanfunk - it was a great day and launching pad for discovering caches with my kids.
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