5 Eco - Friendly Gift Wrap Ideas For Kids

 
Each year I use less wrapping paper, which is great.  However, I'm more proud of the fact that this year I involved the kids in doing it and I'm getting more creative about it to boot.  Here are 5 ideas we used this year - and so can you!

Decorating food boxes

Take any old food box (we used two cereal boxes) and pop it apart.  Then reglue the side seam with the 'wrong'/pre-printed side in.  Once that's dry you can decorate it.  Older Toad drew his own tree to decorate and I drew one for younger Toad.  Then they used their favorite, glitter glue pens, to add in ornaments.  Doing this flat is easier.  Once it's decorated, glue the bottom closed too (I used rubber bands to apply some pressure while it was drying).

 

Creating gift tags from paperboard packaging

You can use any paperboard packaging you've got laying around for this.  Draw small shapes on the blank side of the packaging.  In this example I traced small Christmas cookie cutters.  Cut your shapes out and hole punch a hole.  Then apply glue to the already printed side.  Finish with a generous sprinkling of glitter. 

Painting take-out food clams

The cafe next to my husband's work uses paper to-go packaging.  We end up with a lot of their packaging because his colleagues save their unwanted leftovers to go home to our chickens.  The paper containers are great to decorate because they accept paint readily compared to the styrafoam or plastic.  The Toads painted one side, let it dry, and then painted the other.  The next day they decorated them.

Dressing up plain paper bags

All that's required for this is a hole punch and some ribbon.  Take any paper bag you've received, fold over the top, punch two holes, tie a bow.  On the smaller bags, or those you want to lay flat, it's helpful to staple the bottom to the sides so it's not floppy.  This is great shoelace tying practice too!

Beautifying packing paper

Some companies are doing much better about not using plastic peanuts in their shipping.  When you get that plain brown paper, before you just recycle it, try upcycling it into gift wrap.

 

 You can draw on it.

You can stamp on it.

Or you can apply any art materials you've got around to dress it up and personalize it. 

There's lots more ideas for upcycling packing materials into gift wrap out there.  If you've done any fun ones with your kids, please comment with a link so we can see your fun ideas too.

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Kid Friendly Thanksgiving Place Settings

We have wonderful neighbors.  They're French and she loves to cook.  Every Thanksgiving they invite us over for an amazing 5 course meal.  It's the best thing ever because the food is astounding, you can't beat the commute, and we even get a plate of leftovers without the clean up.  In true holiday fashion, it's an all afternoon affair so it's a bit hard on the kids - lots of adults talking with not much to do.  Two years ago I started making their table a workspace after being inspired by an article in Southern Living.  

Image Source:  Southern Living November 2010

The kids were put at their own table anyway so I went over the night before to set their table.  I covered the table in paper and then traced and labeled all their dishes and put a menu checklist like in the picture above.  The first year it was all in English and I was hoping it'd help a bit with the what dish do you use when problem.  They got a pile of pens to draw anywhere on the table they wanted when they were bored.

 Last year I did the same thing but labeled everything on the table in french.  The dishes, the menu, and a few phrases such as "J'en veux encore un peu." et "Comme c'est bon!".

This year, I'm labeling the table in French with last year's ideas, but I've also made up a leaf book for each of them to write in.  Older Toad's is labeled 'I am Thankful' and we'll encourage him to think about the holiday and hopefully be grateful for such nice neighbors.  Younger Toad gets some Thanksgiving stickers for his.  The leaf shapes were a freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers.  I formatted them to the right size, printed them out, cut and bound them.  The kids will get markers again too.

I thought it was a fun idea.  The kids have enjoyed it and obviously you could take the basic idea and do lots of different things with it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Birthday Books for the Library

Older toad just had his birthday as you've heard, and we have a tradition of collecting books for our local library in lieu of gifts.  The library asked us to beef up the biography section.  People were very generous and here's the diverse list.

Modern Pentathlon

Older toad turned 6.  There's a whole other post about the passage of time in there, but his party this weekend was fun.  In the spirit of the Olympics, we set up a modern pentathlon course.  You're probably wondering what modern pentathlon is.  It's 1 day to compete in fencing, shooting, show jumping, swimming and running.  Here's the link for the governing body.  The real event is coming up this last weekend of the Olympics.

Of course you start the Olympics with the lighting of the Olympic torch.

Rather than arm the kids with guns, we made the Olympic rings out of pool noodles.  The black one is spray painted and all of them are made round with a stick in the hole and a duct taped seam.  I made targets out of paper, they had a bucket of water tinted with tempera paint and a squirter.  They needed to try and get every target with one reload.  This idea I adapted from a Parents Magazine article you can find here.

Next we moved on to fencing.  I thought actual swords would end up in tears so we made small swords and put them in the sand.  Another set of pool noodles needed to be tossed on to the matching colored sword.  It was actually pretty hard.

Spot was trailered down to the beach and was the mount for all the athletes.   He's a steady Paint.   It was timed with penalties for dropped rails.

Swimming allowed everyone to cool off.  They had to swim out to a bouy and back.

Like in the real event, they finished with a run.  They were all winners so everyone received a gold medal (a gingerbread cookie with hard icing and gold sprinkles)

A great celebration of sport!

Happy Fourth of July

Fourth of July means fireworks and BBQ of course but when it comes to celebrating the country and patriotism, I can't think of anything more patriotic than Woody Guthrie's populism.  Google agrees with me, since I wrote this post Tuesday, and Wednesday had Woody's title above.  Google your favorite Guthrie image today and salute this land!

This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

The Woody Guthrie Foundation has free curriculum on how to integrate Woody's life and themes into the core subject areas for elementary and high school students here.  I found the curriculum researching for this post and I'll definitely be working it in to our studies this year.  The toads wore out a copy of Daddy O Daddy and we had to replace it, so they know his music and the curriculum would provide a great format to learn more of it.



 Have a safe and happy holiday everyone!