Being environmentally friendly can take time to master, and the best time to start being eco-conscious is as a child. Then, it is important that you teach your kids to look after the environment, and it is possible to do this by shaping everyday habits for you and your children that can help to reduce your impact on the environment and your carbon footprint.
1. Compost Your Waste
Composting is an easy activity to do with the kids, allowing them to add all of your waste vegetables to the compost heap in order to be decomposed. A fun and unique way to compost is by vermicomposting through Yorkshire Worms, where you can add small worms to your compost heap in order to decompose the food effectively.
2. Switch off Lights
Switching off the lights in rooms that you are not using is a quick and simple habit that can help you to save on your electricity and finite resource usage. To make this fun for kids, you could ask them to make signs for every light switch to encourage your family to turn off the lights.
3. Grow Your Own Food
Encourage your kid’s green fingers by creating a vegetable patch in your garden, where your children can learn to be sustainable (while using less supermarket food). You can let your kids pick the plants that they want to grow, and help them to plant and water these every day.
4. Reduce Plastic Usage
Reduce your kid’s plastic usage by investing in reusable straws and bags and avoiding plastic packaging. You can turn this into a game for your kids by allowing them to think up ways to reduce plastic use, or helping them to spot alternatives.
5. Consider Eco-Friendly Crafts
Eco-friendly crafts can while away a rainy afternoon while teaching kids about the environment. These can be eco-friendly alternatives, such as sustainable Christmas trees and natural jewellery, or creations to help the environment, such as wooden bird boxes and bug hotels for your garden.
6. Start Recycling
You can make recycling fun for children by organising an event to count and celebrate how much recycling you have done as a family. As well as this, you could also take your kids to see a museum exhibition on recycling and start a family competition to see who can recycle the most. You can also create fun activities from recycling, such as races and scavenger hunts, and show them recycling websites online that have been tailored for children.
7. Buy Second-Hand Products
Take your kid to a charity shop and allow them to explore, picking out clothing and toys that they would like in exchange for your donation. Not only will this cut down on your wastage and the need to buy new possessions, but it will teach kids the basic elements of reusing and repurposing.
8. Go Walking
Rather than take the car on your next outing, consider swapping vehicles for a walk, whether this is just for fun, or between two destinations. You can entertain children on walks by organising a bug hunt or spotting games where kids have a number of different wildlife or plants.