Whether you’re prepping for the summer or you’ve been unexpectedly hurled into home-schooling, there are many reasons to conjure up a list of eco and child-friendly activities.
Asides from keeping the little ones on the right track with learning, nature-inspired projects are a great way to spend quality time with your children.
We hope these fun and engaging eco-friendly activities will be guaranteed to be a winner with both you and your kids.
1. Grow vegetables
This is a great project for the entire family to get involved in and one of the most sustainable activities out there. Asides from saving you a few pennies on your weekly shop, growing vegetables is an exciting and rewarding project. It’s also a great way to do our bit for the environment, especially as the majority of store-bought food comes encased in mountains of plastic packaging.
From starting your compost to prepping the soil and picking which vegetables you’d like to grow, this eco-friendly activity is certain to pay off when serving home-grown vegetables at the dining room table. You can even initiate some rivalry to see who can grow the biggest squash or the most tomatoes.
As well as vegetables, you can also grow flowers indoors and outdoors. Begin by getting the little ones to research the species that thrive in your area, purchase a few packets of seeds, prep your garden or windowsill and get growing! Once the blooms have matured, you can even tempt your kids with flower arranging activities.
Growing sunflowers is especially popular with youngsters and you can even have some friendly competition to see who can grow the tallest!
2. Spring clean
Asides from freeing your home of unwanted clutter, sorting through old toys, clothes, and books are a great way to do your bit for the environment, especially if you choose to recycle these items.
From dropping them off at your local charity shop, clothes bank or offering them online for free, there are plenty of people who would love to give your pre-loved items a new home. Arranging a swap shop is another great way to invest in something new without buying brand new.
If your kids are reluctant to throw items out or wish to steer clear of spring cleaning altogether, inform them the only way they’ll be able to buy new toys, clothes, shoes, and books is if they make room for them. Alternatively, make this activity into a game – the first one to pick ten things for the charity box gets to choose one new item!
3. Go on a wildflower hunt
As well as cultivating our gardens, or indoor plants on our windowsills, look to Mother Nature too. Whether you take a trip to your local forest or meadow, there are plenty of places to find wildflowers. Think of this activity as a nature-inspired treasure hunt and jot down how many species you find, asking your little ones to try and identify each.
This is a great way to learn more about the flora and fauna in your area while adding colour and fragrance to the household when you return home.
Instead of throwing the blooms out before they start to wilt, you could always press them too! This is another fun, eco-friendly activity that prolongs the life of beautiful flowers. All you need is a heavy book!
4. Birdwatching
Similar to scouring your local area for wildflowers, bird watching is another great, eco-friendly activity to indulge in. From venturing to your local forest to fashioning a DIY bird feeder to learning more about local bird species online, this is an exciting activity for amateurs and pros, and a great way to gain more knowledge about our winged friends.
If your little ones really enjoy this activity, you can always invest in binoculars and birdwatching kits further down the line.
5. Get crafty with junk mail
Like many, you’re probably privy to unwanted junk mail (even if you’ve asked companies to stop sending it) – from takeaway menus to flyers, to brochures, and more. Instead of allowing this mass of paper to go to waste, get crafty with the kids!
Turning old catalogs, magazines, and junk mail into an eco-friendly project is a great way to entertain the kids, whilst turning a negative into a positive. One such way to go about this is by creating art!
From tearing paper spam up and turning it into a collage, to fashioning several papier-mâché projects, or painting on flyers, there are plenty of arty ways to get creative with kids.
Whether you opt for one or all of these activities, doing something that doesn’t harm the environment is a great way to teach your kids about sustainability and the importance of caring for the planet, all while indulging in some quality time with them.
Sources: teachheart.org, onetreeplanted.org
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