Kids outgrow toys and clothes faster than the weeds in my garden (well, maybe not that fast).  Beyond hosting your own kiddie swap, there are several sites now that make exchanging kids’ gear easier for families, who may not have local connections for such trades.  Reusing and reducing the amount of your children’s paraphernalia will not only lessen your carbon footprint, but it will de-clutter your home!

• Zwaggle:  Kristen Chase of Cool Mom Picks calls Zwaggle, “basically a more organized Freecycle“.  Organization is good, especially since Zwaggle focuses on socially responsible parents.  It is a simple concept:  “You receive Zwaggle points (or Zoints) by giving your gently used things to other families, then use those Zoints to obtain “new” things for your family.”  You can obtain Zoints just by signing up through Parent Bloggers Network. 
• SwapBabyGoods:  This site’s motto is “Keeping the Earth green one swap at a time.”  You can swap, buy, trade your gently used kids’ items to save money and reduce your consumption of new goods.  Best of all, SwapBabyGoods was started by a stay-at-home mom!
• Swango:  Everything listed on Swango sells for just $0.99!  It’s online dollar store that doesn’t feature cheap junk made in China that will be recalled after you purchase it.  You can buy maternity clothes, baby clothes, accessories, etc.  by listing your own used clothing in exchange for credits used to buy other items. Swango makes “Swapping as easy as shopping”.

All of these sites have the best names!  They are worth signing up for just to be able to drop these cool words into conversations with your friends.  What I want to know is can you Swango while you Zwaggle?
Image courtesy of Zwaggle

Whether you are Christian or not, children love to hunt for a basket full of goodies on the springtime holiday of Easter, which this year falls very close to the spring equinox. My childhood memories of Easter are filled with fake, green plastic grass, gross gooey marshmallow bunnies, and of course, the ubiquitous chocolate bunny. My children’s Easter gifts are a much more eco-friendly than those of my youth. Here are a few ideas I have come across this year for an eco-friendly Easter:

• Green Gift Ideas: Stubby Pencil Studio is now carrying wooden toys. The Spinny Speller is great for teaching children phonemic awareness and reminds me of the homemade phonics mediators my grandmother used to make for her first graders. The Made By Me wooden kits are perfect for little hands to decorate and assemble. Both toys are made in the USA. Stubby Pencil recycled cards and eco-art supplies also make nice additions to your child’s Easter basket. The cards now come in eco-friendly packaging consisting of a custom button/string tie envelope made from 30% post consumer recycled paper and green seal certified.
• Avoid food coloring and dye your eggs naturally Check out Autumn’s great post on “The Incredible, Edible Egg Dye” and last year’s posts by Phillip (”Weekly DIY: Natural Dyes for Coloring Eggs“) and myself (”Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs“).
• Give your child a book instead of candy; Whole World by Christopher Corr and Fred Penner is a new children’s book based upon the gospel spiritual originally sung by African American pianist and composer Margaret Bonds (1913-1972). We’ve reviewed a lot of great, green children’s literature on Eco Child’s Play that would be perfect for your child.
• Fair Trade basket, no plastic: Green Mom Finds featured this week a Fair Trade basket called the Bolga Basket. It is hand-made of straw by a local artisan weaver in the town of Bolgatanga, Ghana in West Africa and is colored with plant extracts. You and your child are sure to find a use for this basket long after the Easter egg hunt ends.

Skip the plastic eggs and fill your child’s basket with eco-friendly goodies this year. You can help the Easter Bunny leave a smaller footprint while pleasing your children! For more ideas, please visit my post from last spring titled “Prayer Flags for Easter“.

Image courtesy of Stubby Pencil Studio.

After years of hearing the word ecotourism, “Geotourism” starts to appear in travel publications as well as destination maps.

What is this entire new buzz about? Critics are fast to point out that it is just a new term for a market niche, but Jonathan B. Tourtellot thinks differently.

Jonathan B. Tourtellot, Senior Editor of National Geographic coined this term in 1997 in response to many requests for a concept more inclusive and holistic than “ecotourism” and “sustainable tourism”. The concept was introduced publicly in a 2002 report by the Travel Industry Association of America and National Geographic Traveler magazine.

Sure you can buy your sweeties organic flowers or chocolate and have your children decorate Valentines made from recycled paper; however, in my family, we have another tradition. Every year for Valentine’s Day, we take the opportunity to buy a fruit tree  or rose bush. What better way to express our love than to give a gift that may offset some of our carbon footprint?

I love chocolate as much as the next guy/gal, but I am not a fan of cut flowers, even though I worked in flower shop in high school.  Lavish bouquets purchased to celebrate holidays have spawned a thriving industry that heavily relies on pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. According to the Wise Geek:

Most cut flowers are grown in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia in large greenhouse environments staffed by underpaid, non-unionized workers…Because cut flowers are grown in nations with more lax environmental laws, many banned substances including DDT and methyl-bromide are used in flower production…Some cut flowers may be shipped thousands of miles, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at every step of the way.

Purchasing a live plant is a great, greener alternative to cut flowers, especially when you buy a blooming or fruiting plant that will remind your family year after year of your love.   Involving your children in selecting and planting the living gift will create a natural experience to accompany the gift.  Anxiously awaiting, predicting, observing the plant throughout the growing season turns a Valentine’s gift into a long term nature study.

Alternatively, Oxfam is asking people this Valentine’s Day to “think outside the chocolate box”. For $40, you can purchase your loved ones a dozen baby chicks.  This gift will go to a family affected by HIV/AIDS.  If chicks are not your style, you can purchase a sheep, fair trade honey, or plant a garden with your donation.

For more ideas on having a green Valentine’s Day, check out Crafting a Green World.

You can read about the history of Valentine’s Day here.

Image courtesy of Oxfam.  

What do Coca-Cola, Kellogg and Dean Foods have in common, besides being marketers of some of the most popular food items found on grocery shelves? They all own organic brands.

And they are not alone. Most of the top 25 food producers own one or more organic brands and are rapidly developing their own.

Here’s a short list of some of the most popular organic brands and their corporate parents :

Odwalla (Coca Cola)

Morningstar ( Kellogg)

Horizon (Dean Foods)

Boca Foods ( Kraft)

Earth’s Best (Heinz)

Cascadian Farms (General Mills)

Naked Juice (Pepsi)

We shouldn’t be surprised, after all, once these products appeared in our local grocery store, we should have known. But, it’s started to raise the question: how big is still green?

Dr. Phil Howard, Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, concludes recent trends in organic food have both positive and negative effects

On the positive side more and more of our foods are healthier for us, as more and more become certified organic. The USDA standards for organic prohibit genetically engineered and irradiated ingredients and synthetic pesticides. The volume purchasing power of these large corporations has also helped bring down the average cost of organic foods and increased their availability.

On the flip side, rather than rotating crops, major food manufacturers tend to plant a single item, then farm in on an industrial scale using trucked in organic fertilizer. Then harvested product is processed, packaged and shipped all over the world increasing fossil fuel consumption and packaging waste.

So, is it a wash? Should we be concerned about the industrialization of organic foods or should we applaud the fact that our food supply is becoming healthier? Dr. Howard thinks both.

As the industry evolves, we must address concentration in the industry, where food comes from, how far it travels and by what means, packaging and waste, a living wage for farm workers, preserving farmland and keeping farmers on the land, and continuing to be the front line for sustainability.

However,

The success of organic, is a striking reminder that we have the power to influence the way food is grown, processed and distributed. Those who continue to fight for the ideals of the original organic movement should feel optimistic about achieving these goals in the future.

Read more about this topic at: PCC Sound Consumer.

See organic brands owned by the top 25 Food Producers here.

When I was in 7th grade, someone gave me a “word-a-day” vocabulary building calendar. Nothing made me happier than showing off with words like “incongruous.” What would have made it more fun, however, would’ve been doing good while expanding my word use!

The UN World Food Program has come up with an ingenious game, Free Rice. You are presented with four or five definitions for a word and with each correct answer, 20 grains of rice are donated to feed the hungry around the world.

It didn’t take me long to work up to 1080 grains of rice and I had the option to set the game to remember my computer and add to the total. Some smart programmer has made the game toss out a few different levels of words to determine what level will challenge you, but not demoralize you. I noticed that when I missed two or three words in a row, the words got a little easier. A very kid-friendly way to play!

Try this as a family and end with a word that everyone can use in a sentence over the next 24 hours, or until you play your next round! Considering that 90 million people in over 80 countries survive on the World Food Program each day…this is a game you can feel really good about playing!

Gavin Hudson blogged about this back in October…green minds must play alike! How’s your vocabulary now, Gavin? I’m guessing it must be behemothic!

There’s a plethora of wonderful children’s books on gardening, but there is always room for more! What’s This? A Seed’s Story by Caroline Mockford is a charming story about a child’s discovery of a seed and the cycle of plant life. I was lucky enough to have my six-year-old daughter read this book to me for her homework.

What’s This? A Seed’s Story begins with a bird discovering a seed one winter morning. I anticipated the bird would eat the seed, then deposit its droppings somewhere and begin the plant’s life; however, my prediction was wrong. Instead, a little girl, along with her marmalade cat, discovered it and “planted the seed carefully in a corner of her garden.” My daughter has her own garden, as I believe every child should, so I was happy to see the main character in this book also has her own garden bed. (Fellow writer Beth recently wrote about her child’s birthday garden, but back to our story…)

The girl tends to her seed, and then one day, it starts to grow. At this point during our reading, I asked my daughter what kind of plant she thought it would be. She guessed a flower, and I guessed a pea. As the plant grew taller and taller, I changed my prediction to a bean, and noticing the pole used to support the plant, my daughter thought it must be clematis.

Every day when she woke up, the little girl ran straight out to the garden to look at the plant that was growing from the seed. And one morning, when she ran outside, there, turning its head to the sun, was a magnificent sunflower.

At this point in the story, I was reminded of Melanie Eclare’s A Handful of Sunshine. Like Tilda in A Handful of Sunshine, the little girl saved her sunflower head in the fall. In What’s This? A Seed’s Story, the little girl takes her sunflower head to school, where the teacher helps her shake the seeds out gently. Too bad the teacher didn’t take the opportunity to teach the children about Fibonacci and flowers. When spring returns, all of the children in the class plant the sunflower seeds, “and when the next summer came, every child had a beautiful, smiling sunflower!”

Organic gardening with children is challenging at times, but it is also very rewarding. The fact that my daughter would guess that a plant in a book illustration is clematis shows that her plant knowledge is far superior to my own at six years of age. As spring time approaches, you can look forward to many posts on Eco Child’s Play about gardening with children.

I hate Barbie Dolls. These plastic, large breasted, out of proportion dolls create unrealistic images in children’s minds of a woman’s body. As Empowered Parents explains,

If she were alive, Barbie would be a woman standing 7 feet tall with a waistline of 18 inches and a bustling of 38-40. In fact, she would need to walk on all fours just to support her peculiar proportions. Yet media advertising, television and Hollywood would reinforce her message, influencing what would become the American ideal of beauty.

And what’s up with Ken being an eunuch?  Leave it to artists to find a creative use for Barbie and comment on this cultural icon.

Chris Jordan is famous for using photography to explore American consumerism.  In one of his latest pieces, Chris uses Barbie dolls to demonstrate how this doll has affected American women’s body images.  Empowered Parents further explains:

Barbie holds the distinction of being the first doll to become an adult figure in the child’s life…She would ultimately become a representative of our own culture. Mothers, as well as their daughters took in Barbie’s messages about how shape and size matters at the very brink of our society’s revolution for women who were becoming liberated, entering the professions in greater numbers, becoming divorced, participating in the sexual revolution, blending families, and abandoning mealtimes and family rituals in favor of work force and the work out.

Chris’ “Barbie” (2008) is a 60″ x 80″ piece depicting 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006. Did I say 32,000 boob jobs a month? This is reason enough not to allow my daughter to play with Barbie.  Whether her breasts turn out large or small, I want her to be happy with her body and even happier with her soul!

Margaux Lange is making jewelry from Barbie doll parts.  Margaux explains,

Whether you love her or hate her, there are few who feel neutral about the plastic princess. I am fascinated with who she is as a cultural icon, her distinguished celebrity status, and the enormous impact she has had on our society. Specifically, I’m intrigued with her influence in defining gender roles of women in contemporary American culture.

At least Margaux has found a way to reuse this mass produced toy into something unique, preventing a few Barbie dolls from entering our landfills.

For another artist’s use of plastic dolls, please visit our post “Finally, a Use for Plastic Baby Dolls“.

Images courtesy of Margaux Lange and Chris Jordan.

We celebrated our child’s birthday with her friends last weekend. At every holiday, inevitably someone asks a child what gift she is wishing for. It’s times like that’s where it becomes abundantly clear that we don’t watch kids TV. My child has no idea what toy she would like; even the concept of directing a purchase is still a bit new.

So, when the inevitable question came during the party, the Kiddo took a moment and thought hard. “Berries,” she said. “Strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.”

It would have been easy enough to go buy them (imported) at the grocery store. And, likely I will do just that. But, I also ordered her the plants for her own “teaching” garden. Perhaps not the usual gift for a three-year-old, but I have a feeling she will love it. She already helps water and plant herbs. This season, we will grow plants from seeds indoors as well.

Teaching gardens are one of the more innovative approaches to hands-on learning and getting kids to embrace real foods again. Personally, I think it would be great if such a tool were a mandatory part of public education, just like PE. But, waiting for schools to catch up and do something innovative in a “No Child Left Behind” system could be a long wait. The teaching garden will have to be our backyard.

What can kids learn from a garden? Quite a bit, if you take a look at the curriculum suggestions that can be tied to a school garden project. Life science questions like “How do plants reproduce? How do seeds work?” can be explored by even the youngest of gardeners. Older gardeners can explore topics like photosynthesis or how plants adapt for survival, or the role of bees in pollination. Earth sciences like weather can be introduced along with food webs.

Math concepts can be used in planting to divide the rows, or measure growth, or determine planting dates. Nutrition and healthy cooking are, of course, part of the process. But even the history of the plants and the cultures of people who grow different varieties are great topics. Art and language can even play a part in the learning. Children can write and illustrate a garden “story” or read books about gardening. Art projects can include seed mosaics or leaf art. The topics are nearly as endless as one’s imagination.

Beyond education, this hands-on approach to growing food and then helping prepare those foods has been shown to increase children’s interest in eating vegetables and in the importance of nutrition.

In addition to strawberries, we’ll plant greens like kale and chard and lettuces, romanesco cauliflower; Roma green beans, shell peas like Crowder and a couple other heirloom varieties; and the stock of various tomatoes, pumpkins and squash seeds I have been saving. And strawberries. Lots and lots of strawberries.

For more information about starting a school or home garden, here are some helpful resources:

School Garden Network
Farm to School Program
Square Foot Gardening (easy kid-friendly gardening)