Yesterday, to celebrate Earth Day and to make my three-year-old son more aware of the environment and how to look after it, we readied ourselves for a few Earth Day adventures! We’d love it if you embarked on such adventures yourself, perhaps with your own family or with your students at school. Raising children who are conscious about the environment are more likely to care for it and have a POSITIVE impact on it.
The Adventure Begins!
We started the day off by making our very own worm farm, something I have wanted to do for a while. Hubby and kiddo drilled the holes in the buckets and prepped them so that they were sufficient homes for their new occupants: the WORMS! Worm farms are a great way to minimize waste, or to turn waste into something substantial like fresh and highly nutritious fertilizer – to grow scrumptious fruit and veg of course! The worm wee and droppings that are caught at the bottom of the worm farm can also be used as an organic compost, in fact, it’s one of the best fertilizers you can get.
My son LOVED holding the worms (and grossing me out with them) and he was thrilled that he was building them a new home. We made sure to munch our way through tons of fruit yesterday, so that we could add our peels to the waste bin and feed our new wriggling friends.
A Tree, For Me?
My son has an Avocado tree at school, when I fetch him we often walk up to it and pikc some of the fruit to take home. One day, I told him that we could have our very own Avo tree if we planted one of the Avo balls (what he calls the pit/seed) and he seemed quite keen at this idea. So, after enjoying a lunch of Avo on toast, we prepped our pit for planting. We very gently pierced the pit with toothpicks and then balanced it on a glass of water. Apparently, a pit takes 2-3 weeks to germinate – so now we wait!
This is a great way to not only explain germination to kids, but also to teach them about the circle of life, and why it is important to grow trees, as well as care for them. Trees give us oxygen, food, shelter and so much more!
Don’t Be A Litter Bug!
Ooooh, I can’t stand a litter bug and now, nor can my child! Before my son could even walk I made a big emphasise on how waste needs to be thrown into a trash can or recycled accordingly. So, to do our bit for the environment, which we will make a habit of doing often, we went for a walk around our neighborhood and picked up some rubbish along the way. As we walked we discussed why littering is so bad for the earth. I mentioned that it’s bad for the small creatures and animals (like our worms in the worm farm), that it is smelly and makes the earth and water smelly with its toxins (which are very bad for us) and that things like glass could cause fires when they are just thrown on to the ground.
My son, as little as he is, really showed interest in picking up the litter and why litter is harmful to the world. When he sees trash lying on the ground he is the first one to get upset about it and pick it up. I’m such a proud mom!
The Final Touch
Last, but not least, we ended off with some quiet time and continued to pack our Ecobrick with some of the plastic we had collected on our litter run. Ecobricks are a great way to usefully dispose of the mountains of plastic we use daily. You can read my recent post Build An Ecobrick With @sweetpea - An Earth Day Initiative to learn more about Ecobricks, their uses and how you could make one.
Teaching our children to look after the world is extremely important, especially when we are living in an age of mass-production and over-population. Setting the correct example starts at home and should be followed and emphasized at schools too. If we don’t show our children how to care for the environment, we’re missing the plot ourselves, since we need a healthy world for our kids (and their kids) to live in.
So, even though Earth Day 2018 has come and gone, it’s not too late to start your own Environmentally Conscious Adventure – there are TONS of things you can do with your kids to make a positive difference to the world. Raise your children to love the world, not ruin it.
Much love - @sweetpea
