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Monthly Archives: April 2013

12 Fun Family Activities for Screen Free Week

Posted on April 29, 2013 | 4 comments

When I speak to families about slowing down and enjoying family time, one of the things that comes up over and over is screen time. Screens dominate many of our lives, often to a greater degree than we wish. While many of us parents can attest to the addictive nature of technology, we struggle with ways to reduce it in our children’s lives.

It is perhaps a bonus, then, that the wonderful Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has proclaimed April 29 – May 5 to be Screen-Free Week. Sometimes this kind of added incentive is all we need to inspire us to action. More than once, parents have told me that their children’s favorite memories include episodes of family game nights by fire- or candlelight during power outages. You can create your own “power outage” by participating in Screen-Free Week. And, even if you don’t go completely screen-free, you might want to pledge an hour or so a day or night to have some good screen-free fun. Who knows? That fun might just become a habit or your own favorite family memory.

Here are 12 ways to celebrate Screen Free Week:

Make a Paper Boat and sail it in a creek, pond or bathtub.

Make a Bird Feeder. Our local birds have gone nuts for ours and we plan to make more.

Make easy Wreaths, Crowns and Baskets to celebrate May Day.

Enjoy Loom and Finger Weaving. You can do this anywhere!

Keep a Moon Diary as a way of observing the night sky.

Slow your pace and have a Cloud Race.

Get a jump on summer by making S’Mores. Camp under the stars if it’s warm enough.

Start a Backyard Garden.

Bake your own Soft Pretzels. These are really easy and fun.

Play a different fun board game every night. We like Boggle, Sorry, Taboo, Pictionary, Scrabble, Mancala, Masterpiece, Monopoly and Hi-Ho Cherry O.

Discover The Joy of Quiet.

And, if you’re really missing your screen? Make your own Shoebox TV!

You’ll need:

Shoebox or a square-shaped box and lid
Cardboard tubes, from paper towels, foil or plastic wrap, or wooden dowels
4-10 pieces of printer paper (8 ½ x 11”)
Drawing materials
Scissors, craft knife and tape

Cut a large opening for the TV screen into the bottom of the box, leaving an even border of 1” or more all around.

Holding the box horizontally, cut two holes on the top, each about 2” the side and 2” back from the cut-out section. Your dowels or cardboard tubes should fit into the holes.

Cut two bottom holes that line up with the top ones.

Cut the cardboard tubes, if necessary, so that about ½ “ sticks out on the bottom and 1-2” on top.

Decide on a story you want to tell that primarily uses pictures.

Place the paper horizontally (cutting, if necessary, to fit the tube length) and draw one picture on each page, adding words, if desired. Leave at least 1” on each paper edge and at least 2” on the left edge of the first picture and the right edge of the last picture.

Lay the pictures out, left to right, in the order they will appear. Turn them over and, keeping the order, run a piece of tape down each back seam where two pictures come together.

Tape each end of the paper story scroll around a tube or dowel and roll  on the back sides of the scroll, so that the paper image is at the front of the tubes and the paper is tight and sized to the box.

Place the tubes into the holes and place the lid on the back. Decorate the front of the TV, if desired.

Gently turn the tubes to make the pictures move.

Slow Tip: You can also use images from magazines or comic-books to create your story.

You can make multiple story scrolls and change them through the back of the box. In doing so, you’ll join nearly every ancient civilization in telling stories using scrolls, starting with the Egyptians, who created them on papyrus.

The Shoebox TV craft is adapted from Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World, which contains 300+ more ways to enjoy screen-free family fun.

 Related posts from Slow Family Online:

Eight Fun Things to Do While It’s Still Summer

Six Fun Family Activities to Enjoy This Weekend

Hooray for Low-Tech Toys

Graphic: Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman

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Posted in Butter and Egg, Crafts, Deck Garden, Home Ec., Nature, Slow News, The Great Outdoors

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Beyond Differences: Pledge Now to End Bullying and Social Isolation

Posted on April 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

Bullying is defined as aggressive or unwanted behavior. Most school-aged children find themselves on one end of a bullying relationship at some point in their lives. Bullying can take many forms. Abuse can be physical or verbal. It can take place in person or online. It often takes the form of social isolation.

Beyond Differences is a teen-led grassroots organization that was formed in Marin County, CA, specifically to combat social isolation, which is often a precursor to more aggressive bullying behaviors. The group leads powerful peer assemblies in middle and high schools. I’ve had the privilege of seeing the very impactful work that the Beyond Differences leadership accomplishes. Social acceptance can make the difference between a pleasant school experience and a torturous one. Here’s one message on the Beyond Differences site from parent Sheri Mowbray:

Their message of inclusion and care helped bring my daughter out of a serious depression and allowed her not only to feel less socially isolated, but empowered her to want to take a leadership role to help others in the same circumstances.

A cornerstone of Beyond Differences’ work is the No One Eats Alone program, which encourages students to include others who might be experiencing social isolation. The educational and psychological benefits of the program go far beyond the week in which it typically occurs. Schools report more compassion and inclusiveness among students year-round. Using tool kits on the Beyond Differences web site, the program can be replicated anywhere in the world.

Here are tips for parents with adolescents who suffer from social isolation from Amy Wilner, PsyD.

You can take a stand against bullying by learning more about Beyond Differences and similar groups. Please join me in taking this pledge from Take Part to add your name to the growing list of people who pledge to end bullying and social isolation.

This post is sponsored by Take Part. The opinions expressed are my own.

 

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Slow and Frugal: A Teen’s 10 Tips for Recycling and Reuse

Posted on April 20, 2013 | 2 comments


Many of us are trying to do our part to help the planet. In our family we’ve seen that thoughtful consumption, use and reuse can also help us lead slower, less expensive, more purposeful, and more family-centered lives.

The biggest influence on my relatively green habits has been my daughter, Anna. From a young age, she showed great concern about our environment and the world she would inhabit.

Plastic waste in the oceans and in our landfills upset her so much that she embarked on a lifestyle of extremely limited consumption of plastic, oil, paper, water and other non-local or non-sustainable goods, which she has followed for about the last eight of her 17 years. She bikes to school and errands.

She buys little and often reuses or upcycles clothing and other items, by embellishing them or piecing them together to create new items.  She uses reusable bags, water and food containers, and water-bottle holsters, like these:


Dovetailing with Anna’s desire to use less is a desire to spend less. She sees these two practices as intertwined. Saving resources results in financial savings, and vice versa. Both also result in time savings, and the ability to spend precious time engaged in fun hobbies and with friends, rather than shopping and consuming.

Through Anna I’ve learned that, as conscious as many of us try to be, there is much work to be done, if we really want to change our habits and be thoughtful consumers and good stewards of the Earth. She recently sat down with me to offer her top ten suggestions for reuse, using less, and ultimately saving money, while conserving natural resources.

1. Bring your own shopping bag, instead of using plastic

“Only buy as much as you can carry.”

2. Bring your own utensils

“Camping sets are very inexpensive at army surplus stores.”

3. Turn off faucets and lights when they’re not in use

4. Don’t spend money just because you can

“You will end up wasting money. Focus on what you really need. Put yourself on a budget. Sometimes you have to decide whether you want one large thing or multiple smaller things.”

5. Try to go to local stores and buy local goods

“This eliminates imports and the transportation they require.”

6. Bike or walk instead of driving

7. Get out in nature

“This will immediately make you want to recycle and help our environment because you’ll appreciate where you are.”

8. Use your local library

9. Buy second-hand clothes and upcycle them

and the most important thing you can do:

10. Stop buying plastic bottles


Americans purchase 29 billion plastic bottles of water each year. This takes 17 million barrels of crude oil to make, enough fuel to keep one million vehicles on the road for a year. The energy used to pump, process, transport and refrigerate bottled water takes an additional 50 million barrels of oil each year.

The creation and transportation of plastic causes much of the world’s pollution. Bottles in the landfill take centuries to decompose and many end up on our beautiful shores and in our oceans. It’s easy to see why limiting plastic consumption figured in three of Anna’s ten recommendations.

It’s been humbling and refreshing to be enlightened by my own daughter and to watch her grow into a thoughtful and resourceful young person. I’m delighted to think that there are many more like Anna who are conscientious consumers and educators. Her tips can easily be put into practice by anyone who wants to make small changes that will have large ripple effects on their lives and the life of the planet.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman and Poor Planet

This post originally appeared in Frugal Mama.

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Posted in Nature, Sustainability, The Great Outdoors

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Lyrid Meteor Shower will Peak Early April 22

Posted on April 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Lyrid meteor shower is due for its annual appearance, and is expected to peak late Sunday night, April 21, and early Monday morning, April 22, over North America. Even though the near-full moon may render much of the annual show invisible to us, Space.com tells us that away from city lights, 20 meteors per hour could be visible.

The Lyrids (pronounced Lie-rids) have been observed for more than 2,500 years — during 687 B.C., Chinese records noted that “stars fell like rain”. Aside from some similar key years, notably last year, when my family scanned the skies and then joined many other enthusiasts for NASA’s Up All Night NASA Chat, and 1982, when 90 and more shooting stars were seen for a period of hours, the Lyrids have been a minor meteor shower.

Can’t watch it at the exact time? Don’t worry — astronomers tell us that meteor showers can last for hours before and after the peak time.

What is a meteor shower?

Meteors occur when the Earth passes through streams of dust and debris from ancient comets which have entered the Earth’s atmosphere. (When the comet has flown close to the sun, its dirty ice evaporated and that, in turn, caused the comet dust to spew into space.) The Lyrid meteor shower hails from the comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, which orbits the Sun only once every 415 years, even though we see the Lyrids that result from it annually. The orbit of this comet appears to lie in the constellation Lyra, the source of the name Lyrids.

How to watch the Lyrid Meteor Shower

Meteors are best viewed with the naked eye. Sky watchers should grab a chair (ideally one with some neck support), and a blanket if it’s cold, and head outside where you can see the largest patch of night sky possible (with as little city light as possible), and look up.

Because meteor showers last for days before and after the projected peak, try to scan the skies during the surrounding days, if you can.

This American Meteor Society page is a great site for exploring more about the Lyrids and where and when to see them in your local night sky. Their Meteor Shower Caldendar lets you get ready for future meteor shows, like the popular Perseids, which will hit this year on August 11-12.

 

Photo: Composite of 2009 Lyrids over Huntsville, Ala. (NASA/MSFC/Danielle Moser)

 

 

 

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Go Green for Earth Day with Method Detergent

Posted on April 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

My family and I have been huge fans of Method home products for a long time. We particularly enjoy the bottles of glistening hand and dish wash, in pretty colors and scents, that grace our kitchen sink. We appreciate that Method has also started to make bottles  from recycled ocean plastic.

So, of course I was excited to learn that Method is now making laundry detergent and products in its signature and other scents and that I was being asked to give them a try.

I chose a 50-load bottle of Fresh Air scented detergent. I greatly appreciated the pump bottle and its ease of transport and use. I learned that Method laundry detergent is plant-based, yet ultra-concentrated. That means less production, product and packaging waste. (Because Method detergent is 8x concentrated, it uses drastically less water and 36% less plastic, and requires 33% less energy and oil to produce than most widely-available detergents. Its bottle, too, is made from 50% recycled plastic, which made our family very happy.

My local market offered Method detergent in two scents, “Free and Clear” and “Fresh Air”. While I normally lean toward unscented or lightly scented products for home use, I did want to try one of Method’s signature scents (and they’d never steered me wrong with their dish soap.) I opted for a bottle of “Fresh Air” detergent and immediately brought it home and put it to use. I loved the scent. I found it to be very clean without being cloying. It offered a subtle, lovely, “clean laundry” smell that I somewhat associate with detergents I’ve liked in the past, though Method’s is far subtler. For someone like me who doesn’t like laundry detergents in obvious scents, this is great. I’m eager to try their other scents, too, lavender cedar, sweet pea and spring daisy.

I washed multiple loads of laundry. white and colored,  for a trip, and everything turned out great. I decided to try Method as a stain remover on a stubborn stain that had occurred earlier in the week when the red yarn on a favorite sweater ran into the white during hand-washing. Even though this was a stain that had set in over time, Method worked phenomenally, after other stain removers had not. Method allowed enough improvement (with a pleasant smell!) so that I can actually wear the sweater.

This was a bleed stain that had set in! Method is tough on stains, but easy on the planet. Now you can enter to win a year’s supply of Method laundry detergent and products. I did!

Happy Earth Day!

Other Slow Family posts you might like include:

What Our Kids Can Teach Us About Recycling
Live a Slower, Less Expensive and More Meaningful Life: A Teen’s 10 Tips for Recycling and Reuse
Back to School: Green Sandwich and Snack Bags
Earth Day and Every Day: 11 Ways to Make Gardening Extra Fun for Kids

This post is sponsored by Method. The views expressed are my own.

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Taxes: An Ancient Practice

Posted on April 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Tax Day is once again upon us in the U.S. Because income taxes are due on April 15, chances are that you’ve already addressed them in some way. Chances are also fairly high that you’ve not given much thought as to why our taxes are due in the middle of April each year. Neither had I, until my daughter asked me about this and I developed a theory.

Office for Emergency Management. War Production Board. (01/1942 – 11/03/1945)

 

Although the U.S. government didn’t impose our current income tax system until 1913 (and citizens had been taxed for a brief period to fund the Civil War), most governments throughout the world have taxed their citizens. The ancient Egyptians taxed cooking oil and went as far as visiting people’s homes to ensure that they weren’t using an alternative oil in order to avoid the tax. The ancient Greeks used rain gauges to measure rain and thus determine the tax bills for farmers — the more rain, the more produce, the higher the tax.

But when in the year did this happen? Was it in April, like it is today, or at the start of the new year, January 1? It turns out that, to complicate things, the new year has been celebrated on many different dates throughout history (and continues to be celebrated at different times by some cultures.) Ancient Egyptians celebrated the new year in August, when the Nile River flooded to provide water for their crops. The Mayan new year was in May, at the year’s agricultural high point. The Jewish New Year continues to coincide with the fall harvest. The Incans linked, and the Chinese continue to link, their new year to the winter solstice.

And the ancient Romans and Babylonians marked their new year at the spring equinox, itself a moving target in ancient times, before precise measurements existed. (The English new year continued to be March 25, a full two centuries after France’s Charles IX changed it to January 1 for most of the world in 1564.) Our practice of New Year’s resolutions goes back 4,000 years to the ancient Babylonians, who made sure to settle up accounts by returning borrowed farm equipment before their new year. It was these ancient people whom I surmised may have influenced our current tax schedule.

Ancient Egyptian Calendar

 

It turns out that the first U.S. income tax payments in 1914 were due on March 1 for somewhat banal, rather than agrarian or seasonal, reasons. March 1 was chosen because that date fell about one year after the 16th (tax) amendment was enacted. Tax Day didn’t move to April 15 until 1955. (And, if April 15 falls on a weekend, Tax Day is moved to the next business day.)

So, while it made a fine story, my theory that we follow many of the ancients by paying taxes at the rough equivalent of the spring equinox did not hold (rain) water. It did, however, inspire us to learn a little bit about tax history and ancient ways, and recognize the fact that, even as the calendar and customs have changed, taxes have remained a fairly constant fact of life.

1500s Aztec Calendar

 

 Artwork based on ancient Egyptian calendar

 

 

Images: Tax History, Dark Roasted Blend, PBase

You might also be interested in:

Tax day tips: Eight things to check before April 17 tax deadline
Tax day: 8 top tax breaks for parents on tax deadline

 

 

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Kids’ Outdoor Adventure Book Makes You Want to Go Out and Play

Posted on April 8, 2013 | 2 comments

“Nature is a destination,” write Stacy Tornio and Ken Keffer, the authors of The Kids Outdoor Adventure Book: 448 Things to Do in Nature Before You Grow Up. “But you don’t have to travel anywhere to find it. Just open the door and step outside.” That idea of fun and adventure in “nearby nature” infuses their entire delightful new book. This is an especially important concept at a time when kids are spending much more time with electronics than they are in the natural world. The Kids Outdoor Adventure Book offers a perfect counter-balance to indoor time, with activities that are easy for even the busiest families to enjoy.

The book is wonderfully, and helpfully, arranged by seasons (each of which is declared “the best season”.) Each season features an array of fun outdoor activities, so that a reader might be inspired to tap a maple tree or find a turtle in spring, catch a firefly or find fossils in summer, go owling or conquer a corn maze in fall, or go ice fishing or whittle a branch in winter. In addition to all the activities, which are presented in a fun check-list fashion and have guidelines as to the “adventure scale” of each one, there are plenty of larger-scale projects, outdoor games, destinations, and foods to make, so that families and others can be kept very busy doing the book’s activities over many years.

The Kids Outdoor Adventure Book  is very rich. It features a range of activities, from those that are simple to do, but might have escaped notice, such as “Roll down a hill like a log” (something my daughter loved to do) to more exotic ideas like “Go spelunking” in a cave. Rachel Riordan’s extremely cute illustrations complement the breadth of ideas in this  jam-packed, fun-filled book. Tornio and Keffer, who are judges in the 3rd annual ClifKID Backyard Game of the Year Contest, have captured the joy of being alive and the rhythm of the seasons and the natural world. Readers of this book will surely be inspired to open the door to their own outdoor adventures.

Want to get your own autographed copy of the Kids’ Outdoor Adventure Book? Enter to win the CLIFKid ZBar and book giveaway.

Other Slow Family posts you might like:

Join Project Feeder Watch and Other Fun Citizen Science Activities
8 Fun Things to Do While It’s Still Summer
Have a Cloud Race
Keep a Moon Diary
American Academy of Pediatrics Advocates Recess for Kids

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Posted in Nature, Play, Reading, Seasons, The Great Outdoors

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