Nibble on This

Wow, I just ran across some scratchy, backside-of-a-used-envelope note perfect for this for this post. I swear, I wrote, “Hairless Cavies Love Their Holistic Hidey Holes,” then I think something about chanting a mantra over an amethyst crystal and tucking it in the guinea pig’s water bowl?

I have no idea why I wrote that, but I do know that we had a classroom guinea pig named Chester, who developed a dangerous condition where his front teeth grew so long and they curled downward through his lip. Pretty much exactly like those photos we all remember gasping over of the World’s Longest Fingernails from some past edition of the Guinness Book of World’s Records.

Only it didn’t take years for this to happen, it took weeks. That’s because guinea pigs, like all rodents, desperately need to chew on things to keep their gnawing teeth from becoming overgrown.

Organic apple wood gnawing sticks are the perfect solution for all pet rodents. After Chester’s visit to the vet to correct his painful problem, as well as our own visit to the back field (where we have access to organically grown apple trees) for all the bundles of apple twigs we could carry, he never had another problem with overgrown teeth. A perk: The entire room smelled delightful as he gnawed to his heart’s content!

Visit a local, pesticide-free orchard to get some sticks of your own, or buy online from Etsy seller PhoenixFarm, from Fairfield, Maine.

Be a Draft Dodger

What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and underspending)? (On fossil fuels, that is.) Ah, the warm and cuddly draft dodger: those chill-blocking little wonders constructed of a fabric sleeve stuffed with fluff, dried beans, or fishing weights.

Growing up, I babysat all the time—definitely the precursor to my teaching career. My favorite family lived in a really nifty, really drafty old farmhouse, which was peppered about with gorgeous draft dodgers in Victorian fabrics. Now that I’m a grown-up, I have my own drafty farmhouse, and—surprise!—draft dodgers truly staunch the cold and heating oil bills when slipped into the cracks beneath windowsills and doorways.

Classrooms are notoriously drafty places, and we’re all looking for practical ways to cut down on energy usage. Pass the eco ethic along to the next generation with this easy to make, energy-savvy project for kids of all ages. Draft dodgers can be made out of old sweater material and can be sewn together without a machine (small children can use large ball-end or plastic needles).

You can even have a contest to see who comes up with most creative pattern! But PLEASE, no snakes allowed—too easy! (Plus, they’re not too fond of the cold.)

Learn more about bringing back the draft dodger here, or check out Instructables for an easy tutorial on how to make the tree branch draft dodger.

Dear Mr. President, Please GREEN the White House Contest

Dear Mr. President:

We really think the White House should be GREEN and we have some ideas to help you.

Parents, teachers and friends, send us your best ideas to green the white house and you could win a copy of The Look-It-Up Book of Presidents by Wyatt Blassingame. Kids can send in drawings, to-green lists and letters to the President with their ideas for making the White House a model for environmentally friendly living.

Include notes to Malia and Sasha about making sure they turn off lights when they leave a room. Remind President Obama to turn off the faucet when he’s brushing his teeth. Ask the First Lady to wear a sweater and turn the thermostat down. It’s all fair game.

If we choose your letter or picture, we will send you a copy of The Look-It-Up Book of Presidents by Wyatt Blassingame. And, we will send all submissions to the White House.

Deadline is February 27, 2009. Children ages 3-13 may submit their ideas (drawings, lists, letters) to:

Via email (scan or photograph drawings if possible) - edamommy (at) kiwimagonline (dot) com

Via snail mail - Kiwi Magazine, 11403 Woodland Drive, Lutherville, MD 21093

If you’d like to use a White House coloring page as part of your submission,there are many options online including www.friendsacrossamerica.com/colorwhitehouse.html.

The New Year Shouldn’t Be Like Climbing a Mystical Food Pyramid

The highlight of my 5th grade life was getting to occasionally buy lunch at school—as a child of true foodies, I never even knew you could get macaroni and cheese from a box until well into my twenties. But as latchkey kids of the 70’s, we all loved occasional school lunches, and happily scarfed down something called tater tots (somewhere, there is still a very pale-skinned graduate of Wolftrap Elementary living down the nickname “Tater Tot”).

Because it was convenient, because our parents were really busy and it was pretty cheap, and because as children we were hard-wired for fat, sugar and sodium, poor decision-making, and whether or not the post-lunch glucose rush would last long enough to beat the pants off the boys in kickball, which it usually did (I mean, if you were picked for kickball). And on those days, the buy-lunch days, I was always, always still hungry, and by the afternoon, a sleepy mess.

Those weepy, brown green beans? Those are not vegetables, and neither is ketchup. I know they put smiley faces on potato rounds these days, and maybe they’re baked rather than fried, but a smiling face on a processed white potato does not a friendly food make.

Things have improved, but the state of school lunches is still so…unappetizing. This is one area of the parenting and teaching curriculum where we are often thin on research and implementation. Time to change our students’ diets to one that promotes brain function and stamina for learning, while possibly lessening behavior and attention issues.

Time to view food as a school supply. I let my students snack throughout the day, as long as it’s real food, and as long as we keep the mice in our old building at bay with good garbagerial (I made that up) behavior storage and composting.

Let’s do more than just dine in 2009. There are lots of resources available now (Think School Lunch, Laptop Lunches, and VeggieU.) with new ones cropping up all the time. My resolution for you for this year? Find them!

Goodbye, yellow pages!

Our friends at Greendimes just let us know that you can now opt out of the yellow and white pages phone directories.  Since we receive no less than 3 of these directories each year, we've decided to make an emergency phone list (for power and phone outages) and ditch the directory which has been replaced by internet searches for phone numbers and addresses.

The service is free and takes just a couple of minutes. www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org.

We Felt You Should Know

Textiles made from recycled fabrics are all the rage, and while you may be thinking this happy green thought as you tote that recycled pop-bottle bag at the farmer’s market, here’s an option you may not have considered: FELT. With classroom holiday craft season in full swing, I can scarcely think of a material that gets more use than felt, except perhaps glitter felt.

This classroom art staple benefits from the exact same technology used to convert pesky PET bottles (10 bottles equal one pound of fiber—wow!) to 100% recycled polyester Eco-Fi fabric, found in things like fleece (used by both Sierra Club and Patagonia), carpet, and yes, felt. This keeps mountains of PET bottles out of landfills every year, and reduces the oil use and harmful emissions the come with manufacturing brand new materials. Lowly felt: Out of the loveless landfill and straight into your child’s classroom project (and eventually onto your fridge at home). Crafty!

Sure, you can’t actually “felt” with this non-wool alternative—but I will save my wool stash for my grown-up projects, off the clock. For classroom purposes, Rainbow ClassicFelt is made with Eco-Fi, and is widely available in every color…including five shades of green.

Evirosax Giveaway! What would you put in your new Envirosax Bag?

We want you to get your new year off to a great start so we're giving away a Mikado Bag 2 from Envirosax.  Just add a comment to tell us what you would put in your Envirosax bag and we'll choose a winner randomly from the comments.  Enter by January 31 to win!

What Goes Around Comes Around

I am unabashedly in love with these colorful, hemp, fabric-wrapped hoops. I can think of a gazillion uses for them in the indoor and outdoor classroom, rolling on across the curricula. Beautiful for obvious use in music, physical education, math (make some giant sets and teach that multiplication, why don’t ya!), or when studying science or agriculture…The possibilities are dizzying.

Hemp fabric has a durability, strength and softness-over-time that makes it perfect for use with children. Hemp is growing in popularity as a natural, ecologically savvy little fiber. Bypassing the need for harmful, chemical fertilization, it grows like a weed!

These hoops come from an artist who is dedicated to addressing functionality, creativity and sustainability through her work. Hemp Hoops come in children’s and adult sizes. Children’s are 25, 30 and 35 inches in diameter, $30 each at http://www.hempqueen.com/shop/tops.html.