The ReDirect Guide Green Sprouts Festival is coming to Portland, Oregon soon. Will you be going? If you live in Oregon or Washington, it should be a manageable event for your whole family.

What is the Green Sprouts Festival: This is a fun, festive, eco-friendly, and educational one-day event for the whole family that celebrates and promotes the nurturing of life through nature. Topics are all earth-friendly in nature and range from pregnancy to childhood allowing parents to learn about eco-friendly, community-involved, natural, and healthy options for raising their families.

Interactive activities & seminars: A wide variety of informative seminars and interactive …read more

In case you haven’t heard, DisneyNature: EARTH is being released on Blu-ray and DVD September 1st. As I noted previously, when the movie was released in April, this great family-friendly film is narrated by James Earl Jones and follows three families of animals, whales, polar bears, and elephants, through their daily lives. This is an excellent nature-minded film for kids and adults.

DisneyNature: Earth is being released in a couple of formats. There’s the 2 disc Blu-ray combo pack which includes both Blu-ray and the DVD along with Disney Blu-ray: Filmmaker Annotations which is exclusive to the Blu-ray pack. The set …read more

Handing over some major power is one good way to get a kid to do something, and it’s no different with green living. The kid with green power is going to be more involved, more in control, and thus likely more on board than the kid who just gets lectured about green living. Following are some ways to empower your kids in their efforts to live green.

Assign labels to smaller kids: Normally labeling kids is lame, but assigning them to be on light patrol, recycling king duty, or giving them another cool eco-label is fun and makes their job of …read more

You know how we’ve been chatting about saving money on green goods lately? Well, one big way to save on green good is to do it yourself, make it yourself, and use recycled goods to do it with. For example, another big topic here as of late has been reusable, waste-free lunches. Now, while I doubt you’re gonna go out and somehow make a reusable bottle, you can make other components of an eco-friendly lunch kit all on your own. Make the items below. Add silverware and a water bottle and your kid will be good to go for the …read more

Play kitchens rock. This is a toy your child will have fun with and play with for years. However, finding one that’s both eco-friendly and affordable can be tough. I LOVE play kitchens. To me they’re truly one of those must have childhood toys, so I decided to search around for some affordable DIY options.

Doing it yourself is the cheapest route when it comes to play kitchens. You get to choose which eco-friendly materials to use, and often stuff around the house works for this project so costs can be low to free. My absolute favorite DIY play kitchen of …read more

Getting your kids outside more often sometimes means adjusting your own outdoor space to fit your kids needs. Going wild is a great way to get the kiddos interested in what’s happening outside their door. Here’s how.

If you like a manicured yard, that’s fine, but if you leave one small corner a little wild, it’ll attract cool creatures like worms, snails, and pillbugs that kids will like to see. Creatures like these enjoy a little cover – so a pile of leaves, a few more weeds than normal, and so fourth encourages visits.
Make sure to go native to attract the …read more

How toxic-free are the baby and child bath products at your house? Many conventional store-bought bath products are full of things your tot sure doesn’t need (pesticides, chemicals, fake colors, and more). Right now we’ve got a great Earth Mama Angel Baby Giveaway going on, and Liz, blog coordinator for Earth Mama Angel Baby, sent me the following challenge to pass on to my readers.
This is a really cool challenge, and something I suggest you try. I personally use Skin Deep all the time to make sure products are safe and green. If you haven’t tried Skin Deep before, now …read more

I recently read a good article by green papa Chris Riemenschneider called “Green parenting is not always easy“. In actuality the article covers more of why green parenting was easier then Chris thought it might be. I.e. cloth diapers – kind of tough, but not so bad. The piece did get me thinking though, is green parenting harder than not?

It’s a tough call because the things that make you a green parent are debatable. For instance are you greener if you use cloth diapers but fail to recycle, or are you greener if you recycle, grow and hand make your …read more

My son Cedar continues to be utterly obsessed with toilet paper tube reuse. I’m wondering if this phase will ever end actually. Is he going to grow up and market toilet paper tubes, or maybe work at a recycling plant? Who knows, but in the latest TP roll news; here you go…

I show up at school to pick Cedar up yesterday and he immediately grabs a toilet paper tube that he’s made into a “Weapon” – great. He sliced the edges all ragged and says, “You sure could get rid of a dangerous person with this.” Perfect. Not sure who …read more

As April showers flow, your kiddos can still have some eco-fun. Below are some great green rainy day playtime ideas.

Get outside in spite of the rain…
Nature Experiment – Make Your Own Rain Bowl
Be a killer storm tracker. Have your kids track April showers and storms with these resources; kids can look up forecasts at Accuweather, build their own rain gauge, learn how to make their own weather station, or learn all about lightning. Really you don’t need any extra tools to track storms though. Kids can use the counting method and track a storm’s distance easily.
Learn to make a rain …read more