That said (again) below are some surefire ways to get the kids outside and keep them outside.

1. Get artistic: The best thing about outside art time is that your inside stays tidy! Set up easels or an art table with a tie on tablecloth (so they don’t blow away). Set out paper (place a rock on top for blow away days), wooden boxes with paints and crayons, and other artsy goodies. If you have no clue about how to get started with outdoor art projects read the following…

• Great Summer Projects, Crafts, & Nature Activities for Kids…
• Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids
• Homemade Non-Toxic Finger Paints
• Make Your Own Natural, Colorful Dyes

2. Pitch a tent: I never had a tent growing up (not my mom’s bag) but I REALLY wanted one. Kids and tents go together like peanut butter and jelly – but you know possibly less sticky. In any case kids can use an outdoor tent for a clubhouse, as a nice retreat for snacks and books (without the wind), for shadow puppets at night (grab a flashlight), or for the good ol’ all night camp out. See some eco friendly camping gear options.

3. Greet some critters: Set up a birdbath, build a birdhouse from recycled wood scraps and metal, dig a shallow pond for frogs, install an eco-friendly swimming hole and add some fish, plant a butterfly garden (or another eco-friendly kid style garden), and more. There are plenty of ways to encourage wildlife to come for a visit. Your kids will adore the critters, and the critters will adore the habitat.

BONUS: By the way, now is the perfect time to start researching summer camp for your child. This year why not go green with your choice? Read Green Summer Camps for ideas.

You tell me: What are you doing to get your kids outside this spring?

PS – this is almost the last day to enter to win FREE Tickets to the Seattle Green Festival!

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

• Cookware & Dining Set
• Indoor Gardening Kit
• Sand Play Set
• Tea Set

As mentioned before, all Green Toys have the following perks:

• Easy open 100% recyclable packaging made from recycled corrugated boxes with no plastics, cellophane or twist-ties.
• Made from plastic made from recycled milk containers.
• Locally produced – as in, every step in the process, from milk container recycling to toy production to final assembly, occurs in one place (in this case California).
• Contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA.
• Designed without any external coatings – non-toxic, no lead, no icky paint, etc.

The company uses recycled milk jugs to make their wonderful toys and offer some stats on just how much energy this saves:

Very cool. Another big aspect of this company is their safety testing. They want their toys safe for your little ones. Some safety tests they participate in (and pass) include:

• Consumer Products Safety Standard Specification, ASTM F963
• California Prop. 65 restrictions on lead & cadmium
• FDA regulations for food contact
• California regulations prohibiting phthalates in toys
• Voluntary testing for no BPA (Bisphenol-A)

Read all the press on Green Toys.

Last chance to enter giveaway:

The Green Toys giveaway ends tonight at midnight (west coast), and tomorrow I’ll be announcing our four winners. So, if you haven’t entered yet, now’s your chance. Also, make sure to read the entry rules, so that your entry isn’t disqualified.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Placing seeds: Put a few seeds at a time in a medicine cup so they don’t go nuts.

Pulling deadheads: I remember popping off my mom’s deadhead flowers as a kid; and it was pretty fun. You can let little ones pull off dead flower heads, dingy leaves, or even have them pull up dead plant. Give them a pair of kid friendly gloves.

Worm hunting: Worms help your garden and many kids are ready to help (not my son – squeamish) but most. Let them bring the worms to you.

Rock collecting: When I’m outside and Cedar doesn’t want to be, I tell him to collect rocks. Now in his case, he’s always liked collecting rocks. He has books about it, and a pretty big collection by now. If your child is not interested in rocks have them collect sticks, ladybug (carefully), or any other outside object.

Watering: Give kids a little can that pours slowly, so you don’t end up with poor drowned plants.

Busy work: There’s tons of busy (non-essential) tasks a child can do in a garden with a tiny hand shovel. Any kid will shovel dirt back and fourth between a pot and the ground, kids like to pretend to plant things (sticks, a single flower) in a pot, or allow them to be a little more useful and loosen dirt in an area for you.

What do you let your little one help with in the garden?

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

[Image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Grab your kids (or someone’s kids) and get ready to win a great prize.

Thanks to our wonderful sponsor, Green Toys, we’ve got four amazing toy sets to give away.

We’ll be looking at each toy a little closer over the next three weeks, and we’ll be learning more about Green Toys. But to keep this contest entry post short and sweet; here’s a simple quick run down to kick this contest off.

What you can win:

• A Tea Set
• Indoor Gardening Kit
• Sand Play Set
• Cookware and Dining Set

Green fun:

All of the above toys are made with recycled milk containers as the main ingredient, made in the U.S., so fewer transport pollution issues if you live in the U.S., and the toys contain no traceable amounts of Phthalates or BPA. They are also designed without any external coatings, eliminating the issue of lead paint. Lastly, all Green Toys products are packaged in recycled corrugated boxes with no plastics, cellophane or twist-ties, and are 100% recyclable.

During the month we’ll learn more about this company’s green practices and more about how milk containers are used to create cool toys.

Contest rules & how to enter:

Basic rules:

• Open to U.S. residents only.
• If you’re not a blogger here at Tree Hugging Family named Peggy or Jennifer, then you are eligible to enter.
• You can enter once per household (sibs will have to share).
• One of each set is going to be awarded (four total) but you can’t choose which toy you want. This is a random win. But since all the toys are great, no worries.
• Enter by midnight (west coast time) on May 31st.
• We will randomly draw four winners and announce them June 1st.
• I will then email you for your mailing information. You’ll have five days to email me back, or the prize will go to another randomly drawn winner.

How to win:

Grab your little one, and ask them this question, “What outdoor summertime activities do you love best?” Then tell us what they said, in their words in the comment section of this post. We did this before here’s an example of kids answers.

If you have a little one who can’t talk yet (as in a baby to young toddler) you can enter for them, just let us know what sort of fun activities you do, or plan on doing. If they can talk though we want to hear from them. I.E if you’re a parent leaving a comment about an older kid activity, you won’t be entered.

Questions? Ask in the comments.

Stay tuned for more posts on these very cool toys.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

[photo via Green Toys]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

In New York City, asthma is the leading reason for hospital admissions among the 15 year old and younger set. Research looked at where these children live, and were able to directly correlate less trees in the immediate environment with more asthma admissions. This research held up even after factoring in sources of pollution, socioeconomic status and population density.

Researchers note that tree density itself may not be entirely related, it may also have to do with the fact that children in tree heavy neighborhoods may play outside more often or the trees may improve air quality. Obviously more research is needed, but it’s a cool study all the same. It gives us yet another good reason to plant trees, and to encourage outdoor play.

The study was published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

[photo via Jennifer Chait's fuzzy neighborhood park series]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

See how right I am – just beautiful. Shawna notes that these shots, “Are from a camping trip we went on this last weekend to South East Utah. It’s called Buck Horn Wash! Very beautiful!” I agree.

Many parts of Utah are exceptionally beautiful. We’ve been there often and Cedar loves visiting. It’s a great family friendly state to visit with plenty of get up and go activities. During our trips there Cedar managed to sled, ice skate, and ski, all before he was five years old, and you cannot beat the summer scenery – I highly recommend you plan a family trip there. Winter or summer.

Look at these great kids!

You can tell that these are kids comfortable with being outside and loving every minute of it – which of course is what we’d like to see all kids doing.

Also FYI, Shawna has a new blog that looks like it’s shaping up to be a great resource for green families. The blog, Nature for Kids – looks like it’ll be covering outdoor activities and tips for easing outdoor adventures. My favorite page there is the Leave No Trace page – a great resource for green families. If you’ve never heard of Leave No Trace you’ll LOVE it. Even new, I’d say that Nature for Kids is worth a visit – especially since there are even more cool pictures to see there.

Big hugs to Shawna and her family for sharing their beautiful photos. Don’t forget, if you have photos of your family out enjoying nature, or doing any sort of green family activity, send them in, because we’d love to share them with everyone here at Tree Hugging Family. No worries if picture taking isn’t your best skill. I post my photos here – and you can’t get much worse than mine. We like all photos. 

[photos via Shawna - aka tree hugging parent]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

In other news, I got a new camera, so now I can take pictures of our little outings – of course, not well. A photographer I’m not. My best friend is, so maybe she should have been the one taking pictures. Sadly her camera is all fancy and weighs like 10 pounds, so unless she plans ahead, she doesn’t bring the camera.

That said, you’re left with me and my pictures.

We saw cool flowers and plants like… Sedum

And tons of beautiful spring trees.

This was my favorite bush/tree but I have no clue what type it is – do you know?

Here’s a close up – if you know, leave a comment

Cedar ran into the woods and I haven’t seen him since.

Just kidding.

What the heck did Bella find?

Ducks! The ducks were odd – they followed us around. And we were not feeding them. Maybe they thought Bella was a fellow duck, since she tried to jump into the pond about fifty times.

We searched high and low and only saw one frog (or maybe it’s a toad). He was cute, but I wanted to see his friends. The last time we went there were frogs everywhere. Can you find him in the picture?

Cedar actually took tons of pictures when we went to the pond. Sadly he took the batteries out and erased all his photos. If you have family photos to share of your nature adventures send them in. We’ve had other families featured here before like…

• Mysti’s little one fishing!
  
• Kate’s two seriously adorable children in a field.
• Hilary’s cute kids
• And my little Cedar, when he was actually little and big time into jumping into the ocean.

If you only want to see pictures of Cedar and Peggy’s cat Choco over and over, we can do that, but we’d much rather see your family out and about in nature. Come to think of it, I believe Choco is an indoor kitty, so, no nature for Choco. All the more reason to send in your own pictures.

If you send in some cool nature pictures we’ll post them up – it’s a nice way to encourage other families to get out there and explore nature. Better yet, give your child the camera, and let them take some shots to send in.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

So, 20 mins into our walk his friends start whining. Massive whining:

• “I’m too tired…”
• “Why do we have to walk?”
• “There’s nothing to do on this walk!”
• “Whine, blah, whine…. and more whine.”

How annoying. Cedar never does this, unless he’s sick, which is justified. I tell them we’ve only been walking 20 mins and that people need lots of fresh air to stay healthy. Whiny older kid (age six) says, “20 mins is long enough for the day.” Huh? Seriously, when I was a kid we stayed out all day long. 20 mins is nothing. I tried all my tricks.

• We hunted rocks.
• Looked for shapes in the trees – we found a dino, an octopus, and an umbrella.
• Hunted and counted squirrels.
• Had stick throwing contests (I won!) course, my arms are longer
• Stopped at the park and played on the slides and swings.

Other things I suggest for inside loving kids might be to…

• Take a camera and let them take photos.
• Take some toys, a bike, a skateboard, what have you.
• Read about some birds before hand then look for them.

Mostly though, I suggest you take your kids out daily, or at least as often as you can. My tricks barely worked to distract these whiny children. It’s completely ridiculous for a five and six year old to be so whiny about, “Having to be outside.” When we got back, Cedar said he still wanted to play outside. We have a little park and grassy area next to our house. Since I can see him from my office, he can play out there. The whiny children, of course, started whining, “WHY! Cedar, we want you to come inside…” Cedar actually talked them into playing outside, but it took a while.

If you don’t get your kids started young with being outside, and having fun outside, this is what you end up with. This is not the first time this has happened with these kids either. It’s not healthy, or, in my mind, normal for kids to act like this.

What other tactics can you think of that will encourage kids who already hate being outside to enjoy outings more?

I’ll be back with our first green school audit checklist before the day is over.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family