Welcome to the September 2013 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Extending Natural Living to the Classroom.
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month, our members are talking about how they extend their family’s natural lifestyle to their child’s school. Hop around to each post to get some tips and share your own!
My son started 1st grade this year and I feel like we are off to a pretty good start when he comes to extending our natural living to his classroom. There is room for improvement but I’m proud of the steps we have taken so far and plan on taking in the future.
How we extended our natural living to the Classroom this year:
- All reusable lunch gear: lunchbox, snack bags, food containers, bottles, even a reusable napkin!
- Packing healthy lunches using Non-GMO and organic foods.
- Using a reusable water bottle for his daily classroom water.
- Bought clothes from a resale/consignment store.
- Reused shoes from last year instead of buying new ones.
- Reused some of his supplies from last year.
- When possible I purchased recycled products and products with minimal packaging.
Goals for this year & next year:
- Once my baby is a little older I plan on walking with a stroller the 1.1 mile to my son’s school on all the good weather days.
- Be involved in his schools recycling, compost, and energy saving programs.
Outside the classroom we are also teaching our boys how to recycle and to conserve energy by turning off lights, TVs, and computers.
How are you keeping or plan on keeping it “Green” in your child’s classroom?
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Visit Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project to learn more about participating in next month’s Natural Living Blog Carnival!
Please take some time to enjoy the posts our other carnival participants have contributed:
I wish we could walk to school more but the almost 2 mile walk and the pressure to make the train to work makes it a much more rare occurrence than I had hoped.
Have you had a to pack a school wide snack yet? if so what did you send?
No I haven’t had to send a snack for the whole class yet. If I do I will send YumEarth Gummies and/or GoGo Squeez pouches.
My kids use reusable lunch items everyday!
Never thought about the reusable napkin! Great idea!
We do a lot of similar things as you. I bought a stack of WAHM 2 layer flannel baby wipes on Etsy and we use those as napkins. I walk my daughter to preschool with her baby sister in a carrier.
I love that you’ve also planned your goals for next year too. I should do that!
That’s a great list of things you do! Good for you. We homeschool so we are about as green as you can get in school. 🙂
We use reusable items and get involved with the school. Her school recycles, composts and gardens. Next on my list is to attack their cleaning supplies.
Most of my daughter’s school attire is second-hand, too. I actually wound up saving $100 because the store had a sale, so that was my motivation. I also don’t like the idea of clothes being “wasted” when so many great ones already exist!
My kids love it when we walk! It often is quicker than waiting in traffic.
Walking is good for those that are able to do so.