Natural DIY Weed Killer- Round-Up

This Natural Round Up recipe has been all over the internet so I had to try it.  Not only is Round Up expensive but it also has plenty of chemicals in it that I would rather not spray on our lawn that our children and pets play on.  The recipe is easy and uses common household ingredients. Even though I had heard it worked really well I had to see it for myself and I was surprised at how quickly it worked.  

Natural Round Up will kill everything (including grass) so do not spray it on areas with desirable plants or grass.

Recipe and directions:
1 gallon white vinegar
2 cups epson salt ( other recipes called for plain salt so I think you can use either)
1/4 dish soap
empty sprayer
just mix and spray, let it sit a couple of hours( preferably in the sun)
By the end of the day the weeds should be dead-gone!


The left picture is of a weed before I sprayed it and the right picture is a day after I sprayed it!

Dorinda's shop, Raising Green Kids, offers eco-friendly products for your family. Follow her on Facebook and twitter and at her blog.

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Re-Growing Vegetables Experiment

I was inspired recently by an article from  Wonder How To about how to re-grow vegetables.  It looked like a fun and easy experiment to do at home with my girls.

 We often have left over onion pieces at our home that I don't end up using so I thought this was a great opportunity to reuse it .  Other vegetables we have successfully re-grown in our home are celery, garlic, and romaine lettuce.

 There are several others examples for regrowing vegetables in the article such as carrots greens, mushrooms, and ginger that you might want to give a try.  The article has great photos of each vegetable so take a look if it's hard to imagine what the re-grown vegetable might look like.

Dorinda's shop, Raising Green Kids, offers eco-friendly products for your family. Follow her on Facebook and twitter and at her blog.

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Easy-To-Make Wild Bird Feeder

Kids love to learn about nature and a fun way to encourage them to help care for wild birds is to make a simple bird feeder. Bird watching and feeding is a great way to teach your little ones about the many varieties of birds and their habits. Watching the birds bring their friends to this fresh tasty treat is a reward for the kids, as well as, the birds.

Explain to your child that supplementing the food supply of our feathery friends is very important, especially during harsh winter conditions, to help guarantee their survival. Also, please remember that once birds start coming to your home to eat, they get used to the food being there so it’s important to keep feeding them throughout the winter months.

An easy-to-make pinecone feeder is a simple project that even young children can help create. All you need is a pine cone, string, and the food items you will use.


STEP 1: Assemble your materials.

STEP 2: Tie a string around the wider, stem end of the pinecone. Be sure the string is tied tightly so it doesn't fall when the birds arrive.

STEP 3: Mix ½ cup vegetable shortening with ½ cup oatmeal or corn meal in a mixing bowl until well blended. This amount should cover one large pinecone or two or three smaller ones.

STEP 4: Thoroughly spread the mixture over the pinecone with a child friendly knife/spreader or use the back side of a spoon. This is rather messy, so have paper towels handy for hand clean-up.

STEP 5: Pour the birdseed into a pie tin, paper plate or cookie sheet. Roll the pinecone in the birdseed until well covered.

STEP 6: Suspend the feeder from a tree branch where it can be easily seen from a window. Last, but not least, all you need to do is watch for your feathered friends to come and enjoy the meal you lovingly prepared for them!

Thanks to Nancy Keesling of TutuCuteandMoore for sharing this fun project with us.  You can find Nancy on Etsy, where she sells unique handmade clothing and and gifts.  You can also follow Nancy on facebook.

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Natural and Eco Friendly Summer Activities For Children

At our home we are always looking for new activities in the summer time, especially ones that are natural and eco-friendly.  Summer is a time to explore the world around us and what nature has to offer.  Here are some eco-friendly and nature inspired activities we have done with our family late spring and early summer. At the bottom of the post I have also included a list of 5 blogs/sites that have great ideas for families. Have a safe and green summer!

Taking a hike







Participating in a 1 mile kids run









Growing our own veggies










                                                               Feeding giraffes at the Zoo

Building a fairy house

  A camping trip

Visiting a petting zoo

  

• Inhabitors
• Woman's Day
• Huffington Post
• teachhumane
• Sustainable Santa Cruz

Dorinda's shop, Raising Green Kids, offers eco-friendly products for your family. Follow her on Facebook and twitter and at her blog.

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Bring the Outdoors in: Snow

By Christine of Belly Bear Baby Gear

 

Sometimes you can't go and enjoy the great outdoors.  That doesn't mean you can't bring the outdoors inside.  For this experience we brought some fluffy wintery white into our living room.

Sean and Isabel love the snow, but as they are still young, they don't tolerate being out in the cold for very long.  Bringing a tub of snow into the house gave them the opportunity to explore the snow at their leisure.

Not many supplies are needed for this activity: a large sheet or table cloth to cover the floor, a dish pan, and a few kitchen utensils.  I provided them with spoons, forks and plastic cups for this occasion.  And of course a good dose of snow!

Isabel and Sean made quick work of this snow.  Of course their favorite thing was eating it!  Next time it's just too cold to go out and enjoy the snow, go ahead and bring some in.  Sit back and enjoy the show.  Our house was filled with squeals of delight as Sean and Isabel marveled at the feel of the cold snow on their hands.

Christine can be found online in the following locations:

Facebook

Blogger

Etsy:

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Art Project:: Bubble Wrap Fall Tree

Article submitted by RaisingGreenKids, blog - RaisingGreenRichmondKids

Have your little ones create Fall trees using leftover bubble wrap. This is a fun and super easy eco-friendly craft for little ones of all ages.

What you'll need:
paper - heavier stock paper works best
cut squares of bubble wrap. mine were about 4x4
paints-yellow,red,orange,brown
brown markers or crayons

Directions:

If you child is older they can draw their own tree trunk, if they are younger draw it for them.
Put a thin layer of each color of paint on a left over lid or reusable bowl or plate.
Show your child how to take the square of bubble wrap into their hand and dip it into the paint, then dab up and down on the paper in different spots above the tree trunk.
Use different colors to create a fun Fall picture. Enjoy!

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Urban Farming: Involving the Children

Sarah, of ThatsAWrapBaby, has been sharing a short series of posts on her blog Three Little Monkey's on Urban Farming.  Today she shares of one of the projects in her series.  You can visit her blog (see her May 2012 posts) for other projects in the series.  

The kids and I set about creating a tiered herb garden yesterday afternoon. This project was inspired by one in the book The Ultimate Step-by-Step Kid's First Gardening Book. The book is fabulous and brimming with wonderful, kid friendly gardening ideas.

This project is perfect for kids of all ages. I had an 8 year old, 5 year old, and 4 year old helping, plus a 2 year old watching on. We modified the plans a bit to accomidate our meager budget! Instead of pretty terra cotta pots of varying sizes, I found some plastic and metal pots in the dollar bins at Target (small, medium, and large. Make sure they'll nest). They aren't as pretty, but they'll serve our purpose well. I am also banking on the herbs growing large and hiding the pots a bit.

First things first, make sure you have the right tools gathered. We had our three nesting pots, a bag of soil, a trowel, some seeds, and a few small herbs. We chose basil, thyme, lemon balm, chamomile, and curly parsley. There is a bit room for more, but that's what we had. Steer clear of mint, as it grows rampant and will take over your pots! Have fun choosing your favorite herbs or try new varieties. There are so many to choose from.

After we gathered our tools, we set the medium sized pot inside the largest pot and filled in all around with potting soil. We had a few herbs that were already a bit large, but mostly we had seeds (trying to be economical!!). We planted a couple types of seeds and a couple larger plants in this bottom tier. 

We filled in a bit more and then set the smallest pot into the middle one and filled in around it. We planted a few more herbs in our middle pot.

We then filled the top pot with soil and planted a lovely bit of curly parsley to crown our herb garden.

This fun project was quick and easy! It was perfect for including all of the children and gave them a real sense of ownership in our garden. 

 Try this project with your own little ones! Keep it in a sunny place and let them water it each day. Very soon, their own herbs will be gracing the kitchen!

We would LOVE to have you join in the conversation with comments or links to your own adventures in Urban Farming!

Sarah can be found on Facebook, at her Blog, and on Etsy at her shop ThatsAWrapBaby:

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Bring the Outdoors In: Beautiful Things - Collecting and Sorting

By Christine of Belly Bear Baby Gear

Items found in nature contain such beauty, and children seem to be particularly attuned to this beauty. With only a few simple items, you can encourage your children to participate in this fun and educational nature based activity.

All you will need is a paper bag (or other collecting vessel), an empty egg carton and the great outdoors!

Begin by giving your child a paper bag and bringing them outside. A walk in the woods would provide for some great diverse items for collection, but as you will see, your own back yard will do just fine.

If you are working with young children, you may need to show them what to do by placing a few items in their bag for them. Encourage them to collect as many small three dimensional items as they'd like.

Sean was particularly drawn to this patch of grass and rocks in our yard. He discovered big and little rocks as well as a few left over acorn caps. As your child collects more items, this is an opportunity for you to build their nature vocabulary by naming and labeling what they are collecting.

Once your bags are nice and full bring them inside and pour the contents into the top portion of your egg carton.

Sit back for a moment and enjoy the spoils of all your hard work. Allow your child to study the items and consider how they may be sorted.

Young toddlers will simply enjoy exploring the items and filling the cups in the egg carton at random. You can begin encouraging them to notice the similarities and differences by explaining "Let's put all the rocks together" or "Look at all the pink petals".

When working with older children you can encourage more advanced sorting skills. Allow them to study what they have collected and decide how they will sort the beautiful things they have found. They may decide to sort by color placing all the brown things and pink things together, or they may decide sorting by type of object makes the most sense for them.

This activity will encourage your child to begin developing their mathematical thinking skills such as sorting objects varying by one or two attributes all the while enjoying the natural objects they collected. Take a moment to enjoy the beauty found outside with your children and help foster the next generation of nature lovers.

Christine can be found online on her blog Belly Bear Baby Gear, facebook, and her etsy shop:

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Science Experiment: Dyed Flowers

From Michelle of himamma.

Science … we love it. Many times when we have gone past the flower area at the grocery store we smell the sweet scent of fresh roses and dainty daisies ... the girls have been fascinated with the flowers that are in an array of colors that are dyed but yet they know that they are not naturally that color … and have wondered “how do they do that?”

Well, we made it our science experiment last week! So now they have a much better understanding and can visualize how the flower petals changed colors.

Steve Spangler Science shares a great tutorial on dying flowers, in addition to other experiments he has done…but most importantly the details and why they work make sense on his website that kids understand.

Our science experiment was over a course of several days. We started out using some older daisies that we had purchased later the week before. We recut the bottom of the flower stems and placed them in the colored water glasses. The older flowers did not dye as well as we had hoped, but we knew that might be the case going into the experiment. A few days later we purchased new flowers and this time they did much better and the color was obvious.
One question the girls had asked was how soon do you think we will see the color in the petals? Within two hours, it was amazing to see the colors showing in the white petals. By dinner time, the flowers were fully dyed and in a brilliant shades of yellow, blue, red and green.

We even wondered if certain colors would dye the petals quicker than others. It seemed to us that the blue and the green food coloring dyed the white petals the quickest. I know in the printing world, that when you print with blue ink, it takes longer to dry than any other color just due to the pigment. I know it doesn't relate to the experiment but it is an interesting fact that makes you wonder about inks in general.

Do you have a favorite science experiment book/curriculum that you use? Please feel free to comment below or send us an email. We are always enjoying and reading science books and would like to share with other families in the journey of learning.

In addition to the Steve's website we also enjoy the following:

• The Magic School Bus series. We will reserve DVDs and library books from our library and/or watch the various topics that we are studying via YouTube. Last year, I purchased The Magic School Bus Science Experiment books that take each of the episodes and relate it to an experiment/participate in an observation. On the MSB website they also have a Parent/Teacher section that is very helpful. Ms Frizzle and the gang are always a hit with the girls. I must admit...I love the series too.
• I recently have exchanged emails with a mom I met through a workboxes group. Via our email workboxes group, Colleen shared that she has written several books, with one particularly focused towards science. Colleen has a blog called Raising Lifelong Learners as well as her writing website called Colleen Kessler. I strongly suggest you visit her blogs to learn more.

As we prepped for our experiment we talked about how flowers/plants drink water to survive, how the flowers use their roots, and the water travels up through tubes in the stem. By coloring the water, we will then see the water move up the stem and into the flower petals over a course of a couple of hours. Steve Spangler Science shares a great tutorial on dying flowers, in addition to other experiments he has done…but most importantly the details and why they work really make sense on his website that kids understand.

You can find Michelle online here ... Facebook, Twitter, her blog Hi Mamma and of course her Etsy Shop:

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Where the Wild Things Are

In honor of beloved children's book author, Maurice Sendak, who passed away yesterday at the age of 83, we pay tribute with a selection of items that remind us of one of his most beloved stories ... 'Where the Wild Things Are.'

Lion Cupcake Toppers, set of 12 from YourlittleCupcake

Galloping Horses Kids Youth T-shirt from BigBridgeStudio

Hand Knit Sunset Monster Stuffed Animal from EmilysIsland

Handmade Bear Ears - Blonde Fur Band from ClareBear

Child Robes Zoo Animals from tanjadlyn

Reversible Car Seat Canopy from notybaby

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Bring the Outdoors In: Nature Collage

By Christine of Belly Bear Baby Gear

Looking for a way to enjoy and capture the color and beauty found in early spring?  Then this fun, simple activity will be a perfect experience for you and your children.  Not many materials are needed. Clear contact paper (as a side note, this is not as easily found as I was anticipating.  When looking for clear contact paper, do not go to your local grocery store, drug store or Staples as I attempted.  After 5 miserable failed attempts, I finally found the apparently illusive contact paper at Home Depot of all places), items from nature: grass, flowers, leaves..., string or ribbon, a hole punch, and a basket to collect your nature items.

While outdoors with your children offer them a basket and often all you'll need to do is take a step back and watch.  Children are natural collectors of beautiful, natural items and will make quick work of finding things to place in their baskets.

I was inspired to write about this by my 17 month old daughter.  Upon arriving home recently, she climbed out of the car and immediately bee-lined for the lawn where she quickly plucked a tiny acorn lid from the grass.  She was amazed by this beautiful item and insisted on bringing it indoors.  This moment reminded me of the many nature collages I have made over the years with the preschool aged students in my class.


Once their baskets are full, this is where the clear contact paper comes in.  You may now begin placing the natural items directly onto the contact paper.  Flat items work best for this.  Izzy's little acorn cap would be a bit challenging to use in this application.

If you are working with young toddlers as I was here, they will not only enjoy sticking items to the contact paper, but will want some time to simply enjoy the tactile experience of the paper itself!

Now that you have filled one piece of contact paper with your beautiful things, you can either place a new piece of contact paper on top to sandwich the items in between, or you could simply fold the paper in half as I did here.

This project is so open ended you can make any size collage you would like. Once your collage is complete, there are a variety of applications for it.  If you made a small collage, punch a hole in the top, put a piece of string through and instant book mark!

These nature collages also make lovely window hangings.  They truly are a sight to see when the sun shines through.  Be creative and use your imagination (2 things young children are great at).  The variety and beauty found in nature will provide brilliant works of art.


Christine can be found online on her blog Bellybearbabygear, facebook, and her etsy shop:

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