Forgo Drugstore Valentines for Eco-Friendly Cards from Letter C Design

No time to make your own Valentines? We found some ready to buy options that are eco-friendly and adorable. Etsy designer Cindy Slater prints her Valentine offerings on FSC-certified cardstock. Choose from several different designs complete with clever and slightly corny (in a fun way!) sayings like owls that say “You whoo,” or monkeys that say, “I’m bananas for …

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6 Adorable DIY Valentine’s Day Cards to Make for Your Love

Nothing says, "I love you," better than a Valentine you took the time to craft with your own two hands. So this Valentine's Day forgo buying cards and go DIY instead. Whether you want to make a sweet and fun Valentine to present to your kiddo, create a sentimental card for your sweetheart, or help your little one design a card to give to a friend or family member, we've found some extra special ideas to spark your imagination. Read on to learn how to make six adorable DIY Valentine's Day cards from paint chip bookmarks to thumbprint hearts.

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Banana Eco Felt Tree Offers Tropical Fun

A while back, LittleFruits Feltery blew us away with their amazingly creative, adorable and fun play felt tree. We never thought we’d see something as cute again, and yet… Now LittleFruits Feltery has added some …

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HOW TO: Make Recycled Bottle Cap Valentine Magnets

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and one of the sweetest parts of the holiday is making DIY cards with your children. The very idea behind giving Valentine's Day cards is to tell your friends how much you like them and it's a holiday where creativity always shines through. And making unique DIY Valentine's using recycled items is super easy, affordable and fun. This year, my son and I decided to make fun Valentine magnets for his friends using bottle caps. It's an easy craft, and one that many kids can do entirely on their own, (younger children will need help with the hot glue). Plus, my son had a blast finding tiny pictures to use. Read on to learn how to make these simple, recycled bottle cap magnet Valentines this weekend.

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Do You Want the Government to Regulate Your Child’s Sugar Intake?

Motherload posed an interesting question recently, “Should we regulate sugar to protect public health?” The question itself stems from a recent issue of the journal Nature, where public health experts report that plain old sugar is as toxic and just as dangerous for society as substances like alcohol and tobacco. The researchers, working out of University of California at San Francisco, aren’t wrong. Past research has compared junk food addiction to heroin addiction and some research shows that only regulating some sugar won’t work – you need whole community regulation to make a difference. And whole community regulation is exactly what these researchers think should happen. The Wall Street Journal reports that the study authors suggest taxing sugar, limiting sugar in schools, reducing sugary advertising, zoning ordinances for sugar and even placing age limits on the types of sugar-laden products kids can buy. But, is regulation the answer? Can’t parents limit their own child’s sugar intake? It is a very good question. So good in fact, that I asked our readers via the Inhabitots Facebook page, the very same question to see what they’d say.

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Wee Blossoms Felted Flower Hats for Fairy Loving Tots

If you’ve got a little one who is overly enchanted with fairies, then how perfect is this sweet hat idea! Little ones will adore these charming flower blossom hats, and you have to admit, they’d look super adorable on a baby. Great for birthday parties, a photo opp (just add wings or some fairy-minded clothing) or use them for costume play. Each soft …

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Keep Your Tot Crusin With Manny & Simon’s Train Push Toy

 

If your tot is in the crawling and cruising stage, push toys are perfect for playtime. Manny & Simon recently added this four-car train to their already amazing array of sustainably made wooden rolling toys. Their collection of push toys is made from 100% post-industrial recycled wood residuals and painted with non-toxic, zero-VOC paint. This colorful toy is sure to keep your tot moving and groovin. Choo choo!

+ Train Push Toy $48

+ Manny & Simon

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Kids Can Take a Spin with Whirleo To Save the Planet

If you're looking for a creative app that's family and earth-friendly, then Whirleo, a new app, presented by Smith & Tinker in conjunction with 1% for the Planet, should be a spinning good time. Both parents and kids alike will enjoy helping Whirly and his friends clean-up their environment via a favorite touch-based mobile gaming device.

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Areaware Dovetail Animals by Karl Zahn Can Be Mixed and Matched to Create New Creatures

Areaware has brought us several awesome wood animals in the past like Hanno the Gorilla, Ursa the Bear and Hugo the Wild Boar all designed by David Weeks. Now Areaware and Karl Zahn have teamed up to bring you a beautiful collection of Dovetail Animals. Each wooden animal comes in three parts that fit together thanks to dovetail joints.

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Celebrate the Upcoming Change in Seasons with Groundhog Day

According to North American folklore, on February 2nd, Groundhog Day, Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his burrow to predict the upcoming weather. If the groundhog comes out of his burrow on a cloudy day, he will leave the burrow signaling that spring is almost here. But if he sees his shadow and retreats back into his burrow, the legend says we can expect six more weeks of winter weather. Despite a mostly cloudy day in the Northeast, Phil saw his shadow this year so it looks like winter will keep dragging on. Read on to learn everything you need to know to discuss and celebrate Groundhog Day with your little ones.

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New Study Finds that Children’s Books Increasingly Fail to Incorporate Nature

When I was a little girl, most of my favorite books had slices of nature incorporated. Pippi Longstocking climbed trees, shimmied up mountains, frolicked in the woods, sailed on lakes and had many other nature adventures. The girls of Little Women and Little House went ice skating, jumped in barns, held picnics and walked everywhere. My favorite kid-detectives even solved most of their cases by snooping around outside gathering clues. In fact, even the more modern books I enjoyed showcased kids outside, doing typical kid-minded activities like building forts, walking to school, camping and more. Kids today, unless they’re prone to only the classics, are missing out on this significant nature slant in books, at least according to a new study. The study analyzed 296 books receiving Caldecott awards from 1938 to 2008 and found that as the years go on, there have been significant declines in books that depict natural environments and animals, while what the researchers call, “Built environments” have become more common.

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Studio Ditte Paper Robots Are Fun to Build and Play With

With Studio Ditte’s Paper Robots you can build six colorful robots. All you need is scissors, a ruler and glue – no tech skills required! Sure, these robots aren’t made from recycled paper (What a shame!), but they are super-lightweight to ship and easy-peasy to recycle once your child moves on to other toys. These aren’t the first paper robots to hit the scene though – a few years back we shared the cut-fold-connect PIPEROID paper robots from Takashi Tsunoda …

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Kids, Get Ready for National Green Week 2012!

The Green Education Foundation (GEF) is attempting to mobilize millions of students from across the country to participate in National Green Week 2012 during February. In what GEF says will be the largest waste reduction campaign in history, National Green Week will be officially kicking off on February 6, but students and schools may choose any week from Feb.6 – April 22 (Earth Day) to participate. So far, GEF reports that almost 5,000 schools have registered reaching nearly six million students. The idea behind Green Week is that students can be empowered to be green leaders of their own school sustainability campaigns. The campaign asks students to participate in activities such as pledging to bring school snacks, water and lunches in reusable containers as part of the Waste-Free Snacks Campaign. Students may also take the Green Energy Challenge, an effort to reduce energy consumption at school and at home, where students actually audit their classrooms, schools and homes to find energy leaks and correct them. There’s also a cool Adopt-a-Plant for your classroom project (complete with adoption papers!).

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Alzheimer’s Type Symptoms Seen in Children Exposed to Air Pollution

New research shows that children exposed to air pollution may experience some of the very same physical and genetic changes in their brains that adults who have Alzheimer’s disease experience. It’s not a big shock that more scientists have linked air pollution to health problems. Past research shows that air pollution is linked to asthma, autism, bodily inflammation, poor academic success, brain, respiratory, and digestive problems in early life, low IQ, developmental delays, slower lung growth and other serious issues. In the case of this study, researchers compared the brains of children and young adults living in urban, higher pollution areas with the brains of those living in less polluted, rural areas. While studying the brains, researchers found that the gene expression analysis showed there were major differences in how the genes worked between rural and urban dwellers. In fact, more than 100 genes were changed in the brains of individuals who lived in urban areas.

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6 Ways to Have an Eco-friendly Family Valentine’s Day

Valentine's Day is a undeniably a sweet holiday surrounded by feelings of warmth, love, and happiness. While the day's traditions don't necessarily make it a landmine of eco-sins, there are ways to make the holiday greener. From the sweets you choose to the cards your kids send, read on for six ways to make the holiday a Valentine to your family and Mother Earth as well.

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Surprise Your Tot With a Personalized Recycled Paper Coloring Book from Frecklebox

If your kid loves spending an afternoon with a box of crayons and a stack kof coloring books, your next stop for shopping should be Frecklebox. You'll find 24 different personalized coloring books to choose from, covering all kinds of fun to fill-in drawings ranging from ABCs to monsters. The best part? They are all printed on recycled paper.

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