Keeping a healthy environment

Part 1 in tips for keeping a home clean in a way that is kind to the environment and healthy for the inhabitants of the home.

Green Clean: To be enviro friendly, avoid adverse health reactions, such as asthma and breathing problems, and save money, there are just a few basic products you need to clean most household surfaces:

• white vinegar
• bicarb soda
• an old tooth brush
• cleaning cloths of your choice

Why not create your own  Home Cleaning Kit in a bucket with a plastic handle that you can take from room to room as you clean?

Bird Feeder

Family Fun

We had a large collection of plastic bottles as well as the tops and found this lovely idea at pinterest.

Materials needed:
2 wooden spoons - we used old ones
Plastic bottle
Plastic twine (lasts longer outdoors)
Funnel with pipe that fits in bottle
Bird Seed

Instructions:
Visit Family Fun
NOTE: We did not do No.3 but instead tied the plastic twine around the top of the bottle long enough to hang in the garden and replaced the lid.

Linked at Child Central Station

What we wear

Purchasing and shopping involve a choice and that is our power. So before buying ask yourself:
Do we need this?
What is the environmental impact?
Who benefits from the purchase?

The 1st question only you can answer but the second 2 questions are resolved well when you buy secondhand.

Have you been to the op shop lately when thinking of clothes you may need? Vintage or thrifting, recycling or free cycling, or whatever you call it, it means less is needed and more is reused and that is a good thing.
“I love vintage and recycled clothes. They make extravagance less costly to obtain, and I like to imagine the story behind each piece. Who wore it, where did she wear it, and who did she meet? Was it her favourite hat? Did she save up for it? I love the mystery of vintage clothes.” DITA VON TESSE

If you can't find what you like at Vinnies, Salvos or Australian Red Cross you can try these other vintage stores in Australia that are specifically for recycled childrens clothing and accessories:
Second Childhood  Melbourne,Victoria
Vinegar and Brown Paper Melbourne, Victoria
Boomerang Claremont, WA
Clothes LIME Boutique online store
Bearly Worn  Albury NSW and online
2nd life NSW

I'm sure you know many more stores you would like to recommend so please add them in comments to be included in this growing directory.

A brightly coloured earth, sky sea

Here at earth sky sea child we think that earth day is everyday.  We want to provide our children with a worthwhile life now and in their future. We have provided many practical ideas for a sustainable earth sky and sea:

BOOKS:
Beautiful books about the environment
eco friendly books

ART IDEAS:
Eco friendly finger paint
recycling art materials
eco products for creative kids
collage uses recycled materials

TOYS:
TOYS YOU CAN MAKE OR BUY that are enviro friendly

LEARNING LOVE OF THE ENVIRONMENT:
Creating a lizard garden
outdoor ideas for children
We all need vitamin G
Nature Table

Through a forest

            Come to the woods, for here is rest.   There is no repose like that of the green deep woods. 

John Muir

Love the earth

THOMAS LOCKER has written and illustrated many award-winning books for children. He lives in Stuyvesant, New York, at the edge of the Hudson River.  His books nclude factual information on nature.

Mountain Dance
MOUNTAINS RISE through the clouds in a slow dance that goes on and on for millions of years

Cloud Dance
CLOUDS OF MANY shapes and sizes drift and dance across the sky

Journey across the heavens through thick cumulus clouds, wispy cirrus clouds, and wide stratus clouds as they dance through every season of the year. Thomas Locker introduces young readers to the basic science of our natural world with brilliant illustrations and poetic prose.

Water Dance

Travel with author-illustrator Thomas Locker and follow our planet's most precious resource--water--on its daily journey through our world.

More eco friendly books

These books are for older children than the previous eco friendly book suggestions - probably for around seven years and older.

Recycle!: A Handbook for Kids by Gail Gibbons.

This lively and informative handbook explains the process of recycling from start to finish. The book focuses on 5 different types of rubbish - paper, glass, aluminium cans, plastic and polystyrene.

365 Ways to Live Green for Kids: Saving the Environment at Home, School, or at Play--Every Day! by Sheri Amsel.  In the greenconscious world we live in today, parents realize the importance of teaching the lessons of green living, early on. With this book, parents can encourage their children to be ecologically friendly with fun lessons

 Journey for the Planet: A Kid's Five Week Adventure to Create and Earth-friendly Life by David Gershon,  Journey for the Planet: A Kid s 5-Week Adventure to Create an Earth-Friendly Life is a fun, engaging illustrated workbook for every child who wants to make a difference for the world.  Action steps that can impact both climate change and the environment as a whole.

Not Your Typical Book About the Environment by Elin Kelsey.  We live in a time of heightened environmental awareness, and this knowledge is creating a generation of children with feelings of eco-anxiety — the world is doomed, isn't it? Maybe not. Not Your Typical Book about the Environment allays kids’ fears by showing how all is not lost. Young readers learn about the remarkable time they live in: smart technologies, innovative ideas, and a growing commitment to alternative lifestyles are exploding around the world. Awareness is creating a future that will be brighter than we sometimes might think.

Grow: An Environmentally Friendly Book ... by Alyson Beaton and K. J. Bradley. Takes a child through a typical day, implementing a "normal" routine that is environmentally and socially sound. The sharply designed book helps parents teach children very early on how easy it is to take steps for a cleaner earth.

Touch the earth daily

"For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet; For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank Thee!"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For flowers that bloom about our feet; For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet; For song of bird, and hum of bee; For all things fair we hear or see, Father in heaven, we thank Thee!"

 Ralph Waldo Emerson