Kids love nothing more than an assembly to, um, break up the day. Parents and teachers love the messages that come with great entertainment - if kids only knew they were actually learning something! If you’re lucky enough to live in California or the Pacific Northwest, your kids may have seen these unique entertainers bringing a message of conservation and recycling with a funky twist.
In California, Rock Steady Juggling performs various age-appropriate shows about recycling and reusing, water conservation, and pollution. “The Amazing Adventures of the Recycling Wizard” is the elementary-age program, combining juggling and magic; “Waste Not, Want Not,” a recycling and water conservation assembly for middle school students, combines “juggling, comedy and audience participation.” Check out the calendar to see when Rock Steady might be at your kid’s school, and encourage your schools to find an equally fun and informative program.
Recycleman and the Dumpster Divers, a Washington and Oregon State program, provides an interactive concert also with a recycling flair. Peter Dubois is a Waste Reduction Specialist, and his alter ego, Recycleman, has been entertaining kids for over ten years! Your kids will learn such catchy tunes as “Stinky Stinky Landfill,” “Water Conservation Rap,” and “Save It Don’t Pave It”. Be sure to click on the video to see this not-so-stinky band in action!
My last post was about lunchboxes. But what about lunch at home? I used to use a lot of paper goods to make clean-up easier, and my kids especially love straws. For everything. Drinking, painting, magic wands…anyway, aside from chucking straws altogether, there are now much better alternatives for plastic and paperware. Browse around Green Home - it’s an amazing site, but I am particularly fond of their Kitchen section for a papergoods makeover. Can’t let go of brown bag lunches? Buy unbleached, recyclable ones! Do you go through plastic cups like the water that’s in them? These recycled cups are even dishwasher safe. And as for those straws, I love these compostable and biodegradable corn-resin straws. They taste particularly well with chocolate milk, so I’m told…
This week I’m going to try and cover as much eco-’back-to-school’ as possible, and believe me, there’s a lot of ground to cover. It may be difficult to go to Office Depot and find all the eco-friendly products you want for your kids, but there are a lot of alternatives out there. First a fun one…Remember those fruit smelly pencils? When you were done with the pencil point, you took it out and moved it to the bottom and a new one would appear? They were all plastic and lead and are probably still sitting at the bottom of a landfill…well, fast forward and taa-daa - Smencils!
We love Smencils for so many reasons (besides the fact that they sound so nerdy and back-to-school!) These SMElly peNCILS are made out of recycled newspapers, biodegradable erasers, and recyclable packaging - they wrap newspaper around a standard #2 core (so yes, you can take the SATs with them), and are dipped in wonderful flavors. The pre-scented Smencils come in flavors like bubble gum, cherry, orange, and watermelon, and their smelly-ness is guaranteed for two years! You can even make your own Smencils with the Home Kit! Great for recycling projects at home and in the classroom…Smencils even has a fundraising program, to spread the message of good-smelling recycling without the added calories (M&M’s, anyone?).
I was so psyched when I found this company, called stitch’T. You send in your old (and freshly washed) t-shirts, sweatshirts, polos, or collared shirts, and they make a completely unique, designed-by-you pillowcase, crib blanket, or quilt! Awesome idea for people who collect t-shirts and need to make room in their closet. Or, for the future sports fan in your family. Or, if you’re a die-hard Penn State fan and you have more Nittany Lions clothing than you know what to do with…you work with stitch’T to make an new heirloom out of your old favorites! Check out their gallery and faq section for more info. Prices start at $70 for a pillowcase. It’s not cheap, but for a company to do all the work and preserve your t-shirt memories, I say it’s well worth it!
via Keetsa!
