| | | Green Stuff To Do With Your Kids

From WikiVerde

City children don’t get much of a chance to explore and learn about nature. Caught up in cartoons on television, games on the net or deep involvements with their computers, they lack the opportunities that many of us grew up with, and took so much for granted. The joy of climbing a tree, racing across a sunlit field or paddling in a bubbling stream are unknown pleasures for them.

It’s our duty as parents, to teach our children more about the world we live in than mathematics, electronics and text messaging…

There are many ways to get a child interested in the environment and learn how best to preserve our earth. These activities can be enriching, fulfilling and, best of all, great fun for the whole family. What better way to spend quality time as a family than to jointly give back to the earth something in return for the bounties we enjoy every day?

1 Back to the Garden…
2 Things To Do At Home
3 The Great Outdoors
4 Teach Your Children Well
5 References

Back to the Garden…

You and your kids could start communing with nature by making a garden. Ask the youngsters what they would like to use themselves, such as a vegetable they enjoy eating, or a flower they love. The kids will love getting their hands into the earth – make sure you involve them at every stage. And if you don’t have space for a garden, get some pots to keep indoors or on a balcony. You can even recycle tin cans to use as pots.

Things To Do At Home

Kids love making stuff, and they love stickers, so this project will be a popular one with them. All you need are a few simple things easily available at home. Take a quarter ounce of gelatin, mix it with a tablespoon of cold water first, and then a tablespoon of hot water. Add a half teaspoon each of sugar and flavouring essence like vanilla or almond and mix well. With a brush, paint the mixture onto recycled paper scraps and allow them to dry for about thirty minutes. Cut out all kinds of fun shapes from this paper and decorate them with anything you like. Then when you want to use your stickers, all you have to do is lick and stick! This will give you and your children fun for hours. The stickers make useful gift tags, too, and they will stick to most materials.

Another good craft idea is making magazine organizers out of cardboard cereal containers. Just cover them with colorful paper, perhaps with decorations, and voilà! Your magazine or comic book rack is ready! Tell your kids how important it is to reduce paper waste. You can also make reusable shopping bags out of cloth or paper, and make sure you carry them the next time you go to the supermarket. Think of all the plastic bags you’d save! It’s a good idea to keep these in your car all the time.

Make animal pastry together – it’s easy and fun! Use your pastry leftovers to make a tasty snack. Roll the pastry out to a half centimetre thickness. Cut into animal and bird shapes and garnish with a little grated cheese. Bake at 200˚ for about 10 minutes. Your little chefs will love this activity.

You might get grossed out, but your kids will adore this project – creating a worm farm! Get a jam jar and fill it with alternating layers of moist (not wet) sand and soil, with some worm food like leaves or vegetable peel right on top. Get two or three worms and pop them in. Worms like the dark, so secure a strip of dark coloured paper around the jar and keep it in a cool place. Keep the soil in your worm farm damp and change the food when it spoils. Once a week, you can remove the paper and look for worm tunnels. Don’t forget to put the worms back outside when the kids are bored with them!

When the kids can’t bear to stay away from a screen any more, there are good online green games to play, that give kids a familiarity with environmental issues.

The Great Outdoors

The outdoors is a wonderful place, and children appreciate it more than anyone. There are hundreds of great outdoor activities for families with children, and these offer a chance to inculcate a true respect and love for the planet in children.

The easiest way is to just … take a hike! Younger children can be taken for short walks, while older ones would enjoy more challenging treks. They’ll bombard you with questions, so go well prepared to answer them! A guide to flora and fauna of the area might be a good idea too. As you walk, you could play games that involve your surroundings, even simple ones like ‘I Spy’ can open a child’s eyes to the wonders around him or her.

Get bicycles for the whole family. Use your bikes to go to the store, or when you eat out. You’ll save on petrol expenses, benefit from the fresh air, and best of all, you’ll all have a great time together.

A great game to play outdoors is a nature scavenger hunt. Make lists of things available in the area such as flowers, leaves, fruit, shells, insects, stones, etc. and give each team a list. The winners are the ones with the most stuff – you could give extra points for knowing facts about the things on their list.

Teach Your Children Well

Today’s children will be the world citizens of tomorrow, responsible for handing on the earth to their children and grandchildren. When you do things with your children that involve a relationship with nature, or that are contributing towards the earth’s well being; activities that don’t involve consumption of large amounts of power or petrol, you’ll be doing all of us a service. If, at a young age, children form green habits as a part of play, or out of awareness and concern, such habits will stand the earth in good stead for the generations to come.