Thursday, April 30, 2009

Involving our children...


"The power of God is present at all places, even in the tiniest leaf... God is currently and personally present in the wilderness, in the garden, and in the field."
Martin Luther

So i am slowly trying to discover ways that make sense for our family to help in taking care of our environment and ourselves.  There are so many things we can all do and it can very often feel overwhelming and cause us to feel guilty.  But I believe what is important is to educate ourselves (as we have time) and to implement what works for our individual families.  With three children, 3 and under, my husband and i are all about simplicity.  I truly do not want anything in my home that i don't really need, so much less to take care of and worry about (good reason to freecycle or provide a borrow/trade system, which i hope we can do through this blog).  And i am all about taking things slowly, one thing at a time.  This allows me to spend more time with my family enjoying simple things, like literally smelling the roses (or lilacs!).  Excuse me if i am sounding silly!  But i would love to talk about what we all do to teach our children about how we can take care of the earth and how we can better take care of our bodies.  As i have stated earlier we have started out very simply... first with recycling.   On our recycling trash can in our house, isabella and i cut out a recycling symbol and pictures of items that can be recycled and taped them on.  I printed them off of the internet and the pictures were actually geared toward children.  Because she was part of the process she has taken ownership of it and teaches fiona which items she can recycle by looking at the pictures on the trash can.  We have also enjoyed teaching them where their food comes from.  In the summer we go to the farmer's market every saturday to pick up our CSA share.  This gives us the opportunity to discuss each fruit and vegetable and where it came from, in addition to all of the other products at the market.  It is a lot of fun!  If you are not familiar with a CSA (community supported agriculture) check out www.localharvest.org.  CSA's give you an opportunity to buy a share of a local farm and receive those crops each week.  They literally dig them up that morning and bring them into "town" to you.  This way you can eat seasonally, locally and most often organically.  Is there anything better?  Well i guess if you grow it all in your backyard...  which will never happen with me.  Except for an herb garden and the occasional tomato plant i have no clue.  

So now that i have gone on and on I would love to hear what you all do!

1 comment:

  1. i think what you talked about is really important. recycling, eating local - those topics are serious business and it's never too early to model environmental responsibility. one thing we do is talk to our kids about "reduce, reuse, recycle" in a serious way. the first thing is reduce, so downshifting our lives is the most important. then reuse what we do have. the recycle what we use and only buy things that can be recycled. i think the most important thing is walking out what we want them to believe - in all areas of life. not just making stewardship be something we "touch on" while we talk. let how we live be what they learn

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