Switch Witch Saves Family from Candy Overload

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Every Halloween parents everywhere face a daunting problem: what to do with all that candy???

Here's how we handle Halloween in our family.

Our children collect obscene amounts of candy trick-or-treating. When they return home, they may eat 3 or 5 (there are often negotiations) pieces of candy right then. I am aware that they snitch candies while trick-or-treating or even back at home. I am just trying to contain the deluge. I also try to steer them away from what I consider to be the most disgusting candy because it pains me to watch them eat it.

All the rest of the candy gets left near the fireplace for the Switch Witch, usually right in their trick-or-treat bags.

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The Wonder of Snow

My children love snow. Are fascinated by snow, as only California children could be. And every winter we read together the amazing story of Snowflake Bentley. 

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6 Fabulous Christmas Picture Books about the Joy of Giving

One of our family's very favorite Christmas traditions is a children's book advent countdown. Each night in December, we unwrap and read a beloved children's book about Christmas each night, some from the library and some from our own collection. Several years ago I shared a post with 15 of our all-time favorite Christmas picture books. This list includes new favorites that have found a special place in my collection because of their focus on the spirit of giving, and the joy we get from trying to make others happy.

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9 Ways to Help Your Child Connect with Nature (no matter where you live!)

Do you want to encourage your child to connect the natural world but aren't sure where to start? You don't need to plan an all-day hike or trip to the beach to help inspire a love of nature. Whether you live in suburbia or a downtown apartment highrise, you can raise a wild child right now right where you are. Here are 9 ideas to get you started.

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10 Fabulous Picture Books about Birds to Read-aloud

This past year we have spent a lot of time learning about animals through picture books. Most young kids are fascinated by animals, and learning about animals (and observing them in person) is a wonderful way to help kids to care about and fall in love with the natural world.

Birds are so fun to learn about because they are everywhere. Whether you live in the city, country, or suburbia, you will usually have opportunities to observe birds right where you live. When we began studying birds together this year through read-alouds, I was amazed by the number of wonderful picture books we found just browsing the shelves of the library. We read one or more picture birds about birds for nearly a month this year. These ten were our very favorites. I have listed them in order from least text (youngest listeners) to most text (for multiple read-aloud sessions and/or older kids). My kids are 6, 8, and 10, and these ten titles were big hits with all three!

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Our Favorite Wooden Block Sets: Open-ended Play for All Ages

Wooden blocks are well-used and well-loved at my house. We use them to build towers, houses, words, villages, roads, skyscrapers, boats, dollhouses and animal villages. We use them to count, weigh, build, balance, measure, and spell. Wooden blocks are never outgrown and never go out of style. They allow adults and all ages of kids to create and play together. My children (now 10, 8, and 6) still play with ours blocks constantly. These are the sets I plan to save and pass down to the grandchildren.

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Give Thanks! 10 Favorite Children's Books about Gratitude and Thanksgiving

At my house, we get out Halloween picture books in October, Thanksgiving books in November, and Christmas books in December. But this year, I decided to get out the Halloween and Thanksgiving books together, to give us more time to enjoy the books that celebrate one of my very favorite holidays. I love most everything about Thanksgiving. These children's books, with their stories of gathering, gratitude, and family are some of our favorites.

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Simple Kid-friendly Fall Leaf Banner for the Non-crafty

Fall is here!

On a walk around the neighborhood last week, my kids and I spontaneously started collecting a few leaves here and there. I am especially fond of red fall leaves and couldn't resist gathering a couple. By the end of our walk, we had quite a collection and decided to make a leaf banner. We went for another walk a few days later on different streets to look for a few more varieties of leaves and colors.

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Falling in Love with Nature: Resources to Help Parents Connect Kids with the Natural World

This post is constantly updated.

Did you know this generation of children is the first ever that will spend more time playing inside than outside? I read that in an article several years ago and it has stuck with me. For years folks have been sounding the alarm about children spending too much time indoors. Although I didn't spend my entire childhood wandering through forests or wild meadows, I did spend a whole lot of time outside playing tag, climbing trees, wandering through empty lots, and looking under rocks for bugs. Helping kids to fall in love with nature is one of my passions. Since I started my blog, I've been documenting my own efforts to connect my kids with nature as well as collecting others' suggestions. It's a topic I have written about many times over the years, and one I plan to write about often in the future.

I created this page as a resource for parents and educators looking for ideas and inspiration about how to connect kids with the natural world. Below you will find links to most of the posts I have written about kids and nature, including:

• 30 ways to enjoy 30 minutes in nature with children
• How to use technology to connect your tech-loving teen or tween with nature
• 14 ways your family can participate in data collection for scientists in your own backyard
• Gifts to encourage a child's sense of wonder about nature
• 10 foolproof ways to entice your kids to play outside

Scroll to the end of the page for links to additional resources from various organizations.

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What Is Wild? And Where Can You Find It?

"What is wild? And where can you find it?" These are the first lines of the wonderfully illustrated picture book Finding Wild, a multi-sensory adventure into the idea of wild. I love this book for how it entices kids to find wild in every place, in the woods as well as on city streets. Luckily for Eco-novice readers, the author Megan Wagner Lloyd is an old friend of mine (and long-time fellow greenie), who has actually written a post and many a comment on this very blog!  So of course I asked her to do a Q & A with me about her fantastic debut picture book.

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Games that Teach Kids about the Natural World

I'm always on the lookout for books, games, toys, and tools that help my kids learn about and interact with nature. Here are some of our family's favorite games that teach kids (and grown-ups!) about the natural world. Whether your kids are fans of memory, Pokemon, or Monopoly, you'll find something on this list for them!

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From Tech-Lover to Nature-Lover: Using Technology to Connect Kids with Nature

Can Nature and Technology Be Friends? 

Kids' overuse of screens and underexposure to nature seem to go hand-and-hand. But given the fact that technology is here to stay, and most likely will always sing its siren song to digital natives, I think it's best to harness that power to turn kids onto things I care about, like the natural world! Here are 8 ways to use technology to increase kids' interest in and engagement with the natural world. These suggestions are especially relevant for tweens and teens, who are pushed toward ever greater technology use by both school and peers.

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30 Minutes in Nature Every Day with My Kids: Week 1 of the #30x30challenge

Can you spot the mating butterflies?

Last May I tried to spend 30 minutes in nature every day for 30 days with my kids, and we're doing the same thing again this May. (Read about the benefits of time in nature in this post.) Here is how we spent the first week of our 30 x 30 Nature Challenge.

Week One of #30x30challenge

May 1 we swam at a friend's pool. Not exactly time in nature, but close enough for me. It was in the 80s and the first day my friend's neighborhood pool was open.

May 2 we hiked in a nearby park. My kids are great hikers. Also, my husband and I are willing to put up with a fair amount of whining. My husband does occasionally have to carry my 3-year-old on his back or in his arms, but mostly all three of my kids (7, 5, and 3) are troopers. I am so glad we started them young before they knew better! On this day we hiked some new trails we'd never used before. We saw tons of butterflies, and even got to observe two mating . They held still for a long time and didn't move even when my girls got very close. When they closed their wings, they were nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding leaves (see close up at top of post). Before the hike, we went to the farmers market, which I also consider time in nature.

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Citizen Science: 14 Ways Your Family Can Explore and Document Wildlife in Your Own Backyard

Interested in taking your family's engagement with the natural world to the next level? Check out these opportunities to participate in Citizen Science: a way for anyone of any age or ability level to participate in data collection for real science about the natural world. Whether you want to help save a species, enlist experts to help you identify plants and animals, submit data for real science, provide your child or students with a meaningful educational experience, or simply engage your tech-savvy child in the natural world, Citizen Science is for you! Note that most of these projects have related apps you can download for free. Quotations are taken from project websites.

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Cheap Plastic Toys Don't Inspire Ocean Conservation

Dear Monterey Bay Aquarium Manager of Merchandising,

We love the Monterey Bay Aquarium! Although the membership cost was a little steep for our family, my husband and I agreed that in addition to wanting our family to visit regularly, we also felt great about our money supporting the Aquarium's awesome mission: to inspire conservation of the oceans.

Through our regular visits, my husband and children and I are all learning a ton about ocean life, and most certainly developing a deeper appreciation of the ocean: its beauty, its enormity, its mystery, its diversity, its fragility. After visiting the Aquarium, our next trip to the library often results in us leaving with a tall stack of books about aquatic critters.

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15 Favorite Children's Christmas Books

Growing up my mom always put out a big basket of children's books about Christmas and the holidays during December. Now with my own children we count down to Christmas by unwrapping and reading a beloved children's book about Christmas each night, some from the library and some from our own collection. (As a former elementary school teacher, I've always had a soft spot for children's books, and always keep my eyes open for Christmas ones at thrift stores and library sales.)

Here are 15 of our favorites. Many of these are out of print but easily obtained from your local library or used online. I have noted as "secular" the books that do not assume a belief in Jesus Christ for those who celebrate a nonreligious Christmas.

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7 Simple Low-risk Ways to Involve Kids in the Kitchen

Kids benefit tremendously from helping in the kitchen. Kids who help in the kitchen are more likely to try healthy foods and participate in family meals. They are also learning valuable cooking skills and building self-confidence as they contribute to the family. I try to frequently involve my kids in baking and cooking for these reasons.

But sometimes I am too short on time or patience to really let my kids (ages 6, 4, and 2) be fully involved. Or sometimes the child who wants to be involved is under two or just beginning to help in the kitchen.  At those moments, I need a simple way to let them feel involved that still let's me get the job done quickly and successfully. Here are some easy, low-stakes way that I let the kids help me in the kitchen.

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Avoiding Toxins in the Backyard

School's out and that means that my kids are spending a lot more time in our backyard. I am a big fan of outdoor play for kids and adults. Unfortunately, there are several ways that we adults inadvertently make our backyards less of an ideal play location for our children by introducing toxic chemicals. Here are some ways you can make sure that your backyard stays safe and eco-friendly this summer.

Pesticide-free Bug Control

In my area, hot weather means bugs. They sneak in your home looking for moisture, shelter from the heat, and, of course, some morsels to eat. Just the other day the Pesticide Salesman stopped by my door to let me know that two of my neighbors were spraying for ants and spiders and did I want to sign up too (at a discount, of course!) so that they didn't all run into my house when he, "flushed them out" of the neighbors' yards and crawl spaces. Turns out I'm much more worried about the neurotoxins in pesticides than ants and spiders, so I turned him down. But I'm not a huge fan of bugs in my house. I've had ant, fruit fly, and cockroach invasions and lived to tell the tale, without the use of toxic pesticides! This is my tried-and-true ant bait/ trap (keep away from little hands and animals), and a non-toxic spray we use around the perimeter of our house to discourage cockroaches. House spiders are generally welcome at my home! Check out Beyond Pesticides for safe alternatives to toxic pest control.

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The Non-toxic Eco-friendly Sandbox

Does Play Sand Cause Cancer?

Last summer I purchased a used rigid plastic sand box with a cover on Craig's List. Once I had the sandbox, all I had to do was buy some sand. Unfortunately, this decision was not as simple as I had hoped.

If you live in California, you've possibly seen the Prop 65 cancer warning on bags of play sand. That's because the super cheap fifty pound bag of sand you can pick up at home improvement stores or garden centers isn't actually sand. According to Healthy Child Healthy World, "'Play sand' is a manufactured material made from ground quartz that can contain carcinogenic crystalline silica and a mineral called tremolite, which is related to asbestos."  You can read more about the classification of crystalline silica as a human lung carcinogen in this OSHA document.

Some emphasize that the risk is mainly an occupational hazard for sand blasters who experience intense and prolonged exposure to the crystalline silica dust. While children certainly aren't subject to the same degree of exposure as sand blasters, parents still may not be comfortable with their children inhaling respiratory irritants linked to cancer. The issue isn't the silica, which is present in all sand, but the size of the particles. Finer particles can be inhaled into the lungs, causing respiratory irritation and an increased risk of mutations and tumors. So if you see a dust cloud above the sand box, you have an issue.

Non-toxic Sand

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Nature in Our Backyard: Hummingbird Chicks Leaving the Nest

I've been wanting to link up with Green Bean's Spot the Pollinator series, but haven't had a chance to take many photos of pollinators. But then I remembered the miracle we witnessed during June 2012 in our last home. And which, incidentally, I have never posted about (except a brief mention in this post on Green Phone Booth).

Two years ago, my kids and I got to watch a hummingbird build her nest right under the (plastic fake wood) lattice over the back patio of our rental home. We then watched that hummingbird sit on the eggs in her nest. I had never seen hummingbird wings as anything other than a blur before this experience. Eventually we saw little tiny hummingbird heads poking their heads over the edge of the nest as their mama brought them food.

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