Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day!

It’s Earth Day! It’s also my Bloggiversary! Yay!

Today is Wednesday. Wednesday means I’m home with my munchkin and we’re celebrating nature in a big way. Our agenda is simple, but he’s pretty excited.

We’re going on a nature hike! This is one of our favorite activities, but today we’re kicking it up with our special, handmade Earth Day Book. Using some recycled drawing paper and yarn, we made a bound book. The mission is to find some items to draw or paste in our book (if it’s safe to take from the forest!) Some of the things we’re going to talk about on our hike are smells, textures, and conservation.

Gardening! Today is the day to start our garden or at least start planning it. We wont plant for another week or two, depending on the weather. But we’re heading out to a local green house to find some seeds and decide what we want to grow this summer. So far, the munchkin wants peas, sprouts, watermelon, and cherry tomatoes. We’ll see what else they might have that catches his eye. Then, we’re going to prep the garden patch. We need to rake it, pick out any stones that turn up, draw a garden sign on a little wooden plaque we found at a second hand shop. Fun!

And we’re hoping you have some cool things planned. Since it’s my bloggiversary and Earth Day, I’m doing a give-away. Use the Comment section to tell me how you’re teaching your kids about making the Earth a better place or what you did to celebrate Earth Day. I’ll pick my favorite and send you a pair of books from http://www.pbskids.org/ World Tree Day and Mapping the World Tree, featuring characters from the show It’s a Big, Big World. Can’t wait to read your comments!

Have a fabulous Earth Day and thanks for reading!

Sara

15 comments:

Russ Painter said...

Whenever we go for a walk, we take along a rubbish bag and pick up garbage along the way. It's not much trouble, and it makes the next walk that much nicer.

Sara Spock said...

Well done, Russ! Great idea.

We have an added item to our agenda. Finn wants to "take food to the kids" so, we're getting ourselves ready for a quick trip to the food bank. We're also going to sign up to volunteer at the food bank garden patch this summer. So, we'll get the detail this morning. Happy Earth Day!

Melanie Hooyenga said...

Sara, I'm so impressed with your creativity. I don't have kids so no stories to share, but I'll check back to see what everyone else says.

And btw, I linked to you today. :)

Sara Spock said...

Thanks, Mel! Spread the word! :-) Don't go too stir crazy this week.

Ray Wong said...

Happy Earth Day!

Danny said...

be careful what you let him pick up on the nature walk!!!!! ;)

La Familia Lopez Robinson said...

My son is two and a half. He knows how to sort recycling already! We have a bin that my husband made out of a very study cardboard box (reused the box!) that he separated into two sections. One holds paper and one holds plastics. It's right next to the trash bin and my son knows where to put what and happily trots off to help out. We also love to take walks and I pay special attention to pointing out different kinds of trees and birds that we spot to help instill in him an appreciation for all that's natural around him. He loves to help me in the garden and he takes care of the worms I come across as I'm digging. He'll put them out of my way very carefully and cover them up gently with more dirt. "Don't hurt the worms, Mama!"

Cathy O. said...

I'm always so impressed with all the great things you guys are teaching Finn! I'm not a mom, but one "green" thing I just started doing is that we use the local dairy for milk, so they reuse the bottles, no waste, and it supports a local farm. :-)

weeghosties said...

Hey there!
As a mom of five, I'm big on recycling not only plastics but also sharing the love on clothing and toys.

One way to love your Mother Earth is to help a mother in need. Sort through gently-used clothing and earth-friendly toys and donate to a local shelter or that lovely young family down the street that just moved in with an infant. It's a great way to show you care!

If you find you can't part with a particularly cute item of clothing, why not make it into something useful? Stuff a onesie with soft cotton or other clothing and sew the arms/legs/neck shut for a cute pillow? Sew on appliques, fabric paint or trim with ribbon before filling for a festive look.

To celebrate Earth Month this year, my family is starting a vegetable garden. My tween is looking into building a worm farm to help the soil and build our soil's strength with worm castings. The wee ones are busy today choosing which seeds will benefit not only our family but help the environment by not consuming vegetables with chemical pesticides.

One last reminder - just say no to plastic water bottles and (forgive me, Sara) disposable coffee cups! Five minutes of convenience today lasts forever in a landfill----

(off soapbox)

Love your mother! Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Sara Spock said...

Danny! Look everyone: It's my sweetie, on the Internet! Hi Honey! When are you joining facebook? ;-)

Rooster- sounds great! That's how old our munchkin is, it's amazing how fast they learn this stuff. Warms me 'eart!

Cathy- are you using meyer dairy? We love their milk and extra bonus: no hormones or chemicals used in their processing. Yay!

Stacey: you are a goddess, ya know? As an aside, starbucks gives a discount if you bring in your own cup, which I always do, and a LOT of our regulars do, too. Love that.

Happy earth day, all! I'll be back tomorrow to report on our day.

weeghosties said...

YAY Starbucks! I can go back to my skinny soy vanilla lattes in peace!

Janna Leadbetter said...

Stacey's got some great tips. I especially love the idea to make pillows (etc.) out of favorite baby clothes. There are several pieces both my girls have worn, that I can't bear to part with. I'm snagging that idea!

Sara Spock said...

Hi Everyone! I'll be back tomorrow to declare a winner! Hope you all had a fantastic Earth Day. Keep it up!

Anonymous said...

First time here but I wanted to wish you a Happy Blog Anniversary. (after seeing it mentioned on AW)

Hope you enjoyed the hiking. I haven't been able to go in a long time, but I love it.

Sara Spock said...

And the winner is!?!?

Rooster! Yay Rooster! I especially loved that you gave your son a job, to help with the recycling. What a great example! It's important to get kids involved with conserving and recycling early on. So, thank you for doing what you're doing. Send me an email with your information and I'll get your gift sent out. And what have you won!?! See my next post for details!

http://saraspock.blogspot.com/2009/04/and-winner-is.html