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

Children of the Earth is a great family friendly, kid heavy, green focused website. There’s plenty to see and do, tons of activities, book rec commendations, eco-ideas submitted by kids, an eco-gallery of art by kids, a green home section, and lots more.
You could play around here for a good long while before running out of activities or ideas. Gather your kids and pay them a visit.
Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

The Eco-Bottle Treehouse Project is pretty in-depth; but a nice project to reuse old 2-liters and to teach kids about Biodiversity and Ecology.

Stats from the project website:

Learner Level: Beginner; Intermediate
Target Grade/Age Level: High School (Ages 15-18). Can be modified for many age/grade levels
Learning Objective(s): Plan and build an ecobottle (or eco-column) out of five 2-liter bottles that will include an aquatic section, a decomposition section, and a terrestrial section. Observe the ecobottle for 4 to 6 weeks and record their hypotheses, observations and analysis in their science notebooks. Create a treehouse for each ecobottle group, based on their research of …read more

With summer here, maybe you’re looking for something new to do. We’ve posted lots on fun kid activities, so I thought I’d round up a good bunch of stuff that you and more importantly, your kids, might enjoy. Don’t forget, if all else fails, there’s always a picnic at the park.

Nature based fun:  

Nature Experiment – Make Your Own Rain Bowl
Journey North: One of the best earth-based youth activities available
Make Your Own Solar Light!
Ditch your watch and use the sun to tell time

Messy & colorful fun:  

Make Your Own Natural, Colorful Dyes
Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids
Fun Beach or Sandbox …read more

With summer coming up (or here) you need some long-term projects for the kids and this one is super. I would have totally gotten into this as a kid. I’m actually trying to talk Cedar into this for one of our summer projects.
The Perfect Dollhouse: A homemade miniature villa from Family Fun. It’s a tiny, completely custom, recycled dollhouse box. So tidy, that it slides right under a bed. So creative, that it’ll be a hit all summer. The sky is really the limit with this project. You probably have tons of recycled bits around the house that will work …read more

If you’ve got a load of paper to be recycled; why not put it to some fun use first. You can get double the use out of paper with these cool folded paper projects for kids.
Paper Toys: From double decker buses to dinosaurs to Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, this site has a load of folded paper projects to try.
I can’t remember if I’ve showed Readymechs here before; in any case, they’re worth pointing out again. These are the cutest little paper folding monsters you’ve ever seen! Check out these two:

Cubeecraft papercraft toys – fun fat headed folks to cut and fold. …read more

This is a really cool project for older kids. I’d love to try it with Cedar, but he’s still little enough that he measures everything in “Spongbob episode” time. Time makes him fuzzy.

[Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay via Nasa]
Make your own sundial: 
Nasa offers one of the better make your own paper sundial pages I’ve seen.  Not only do they offer full instructions for both an easier paper sundial and a more sturdy version, but they include complete explanations behind how and why a sundial works. Information on accuracy, history, latitude, and further resources are all covered.
This is just one more …read more

Down the Drain is a useful project for anyone, and it can be done all year round. Being a science and math major, well, back in the day I was, I really like the scientific approach to this fun experiment. Of course we all want to save water – we can’t live without it.
Down the Drain encourages youth to track their water use. This project was developed by the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) which is located at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Who can participate?:
The project was developed for 4th-8th grade age kids, …read more

If you live in a busy city, drive a car, have too many meetings and sit in an office all day it’s easy to be disconnected with the nature around you. But the chipmunks, butterflies, waterfowl, song birds and armadillos are all around. So is the life-giving earth you walk upon.
Taking time out to get in touch with your inner tree can really keep you inspired to be green.
How can you reconnect with nature? Many ways, and they don’t all require getting dirty. I know your next meeting may be in five minutes, so here’s a quick list:
1. Hang a …read more

If you’re a kid (or parent) looking for some good reading material then do I have a resource for you. Planetpals, one of the best eco-kid websites around has a very cool Best Ever Planetpals Earth book list. And believe me, it really is the best earth-friendly book list ever for kids. It’s super jam packed with carefully selected books that emphasize treating our planet well.
If you’d rather read changing earth-friendly content for kids on a monthly basis, then check out the Planetpals Earthzine. It’s new each month, so you can bookmark and check in each month for new topics …read more