Holiday crafts are a great method of getting into the season.  These projects provide a beautiful opportunity to spend some creative and sharing time with your children or grandchildren. Making gift tags can be a fun project that doesn’t have to take too much time or involve too many materials or tools. Since these tags will be attached to presents, there is a built-in level of excitement for this family project.

To begin,  collect bits and pieces of cloth, felt, yarn, buttons, old holiday cards, cotton balls, threads and anything else that may have some potential.

Then get your craft tools– glue, scissors, stapler etc.  Have the kids contribute items of their own for the project such materials they have left over from another project or an original painting that can be cut up.   Now the real creativity begins. Snowmen, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, Mistletoe–the list of possible designs is limited only by the kids’ imaginations, so probably there is no limit at all. 

Handmade holiday tags are sure to enhance even the most modest gift. Another idea for a project is to make personal place cards for your family Christmas dinner.  You could include an individual blessing on each of the place cards.

It takes little space or time to collect an array of project material.  Save those old holiday cards, trinkets, and bits of material. They very well may contribute to a magical day with your children.

Blessing to your family during this Holiday Season,

Elaine

Grandmother to three

Flu season is upon us and no one wants their child to get sick. The US Centers for Disease Control is making the public pronouncement that all children from 6 months to 18 years old and those over 50 should definitely get a flu shot. It is common for pediatricians to be critical of parents who choose not to have their child vaccinated.

As many of you know, there is a great deal of controversy about the safety of multiple vaccinations for children. Although recent studies seem to show, at least according to the “experts,” that there is no link between vaccinations and the recent explosion of diagnosed cases of childhood autism, many are not convinced. As well as the issue of the safety of the vaccination itself, the question of how well the flu shot protects our children is often avoided. One recent study showed that children flu vaccinated during the 2003-2004 and the 2004-2005 did not get the flu any less than an unvaccinated control group. However, before you decide to skip the flu shot this year, read this article. 

Getting back to the more important question of whether flu shots are safe, the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health website has a lot of good information from the standpoint of the professional public health community. From the alternative side of the question Barbara Loe Fisher has a well respected blog called Vaccine Awakening. 

Clearly there is no agreement on this this important question. All parents have to decide for themselves whether to have their children vaccinated.

–Dale Borglum, blog editor

In the middle of a long day of studying at school, your child needs a good nutritious lunch. Here’s how you can provide optimum nutrition, support your child’s health, and help the environment, too.

Lunch Boxes

If your child takes a lunch to school, the first question is: what to put it in? 

While the traditional brown paper bag is made with recycled material, it’s better for the environment and your bank account to choose a reusable lunch bag or box.

The problem is, many lunch bags and boxes are made from vinyl, which often contains lead (tests show that some, but not all vinyl lunch bags contain lead, but it’s impossible to tell which without testing). When children carry these bags, lead gets on their hands and when they touch their food and eat it, lead gets in their mouths. Lead in the amount equal to one granule of sugar per day can cause children to have permanent neuropsychological defects and behavior disorders such as noticeable learning difficulties, poor scores on IQ and development tests, and short attention spans. So a vinyl lunch bag or box isn’t the best thing to send to school.

There are several good options. One is the cotton lunch bag with Velcro closures, even better would be a lunch bag made from organically-grown cotton. Then there are insulated bags made from recycled juice boxes. Both are available at reusablebags.com. They also have an ingenious sandwich wrapper made from cotton with a food-safe plastic liner. You just wrap the sandwich, secure the Velcro closure, and when opened, it becomes a placemat! As you reuse it, you will keep hundreds of plastic bags out of landfills and save money too. And they carry reusable bottles for water and other beverages.

If you prefer a metal lunchbox, these can be purchased at lunchboxes.com if you don’t find one locally.

Organic Lunch

It has been well documented that good nutrition contributes to good education. Children who get good nutrition have improved learning ability, attention and memory, better brain development and cognitive function, an improved sense of well being, and score better on standardized tests. 

Organically grown foods are known to have more nutrients than foods grown by standard agricultural methods, and they do not contain harmful pesticides. Organically-grown foods taste better too!

Be creative when making school lunches for your children. The traditional PB&J can be made with organic peanut butter, sugar-free organic whole fruit spread, and whole grain bread. Include raw vegetables with a tasty dip. Get your kids involved in choosing and creating their own healthy lunches by giving them a variety of organic whole foods to taste and finding out what they like.

Washing Hands

Some schools are now asking parents to send hand sanitizer to school with their kids. The main ingredient in most hand sanitizers is alcohol made from petrochemicals, so it’s not very natural. 

And hand sanitizers aren’t as effective as they sound. Barbara Almanza, associate professor of restaurant, hotel, institutional and tourism management at professor from Purdue University warns, “Waterless, antibacterial hand sanitizers are marketed as a way to ‘wash your hands’ when soap and water aren’t available, and they are especially popular among parents of small children. But research shows that they do not significantly reduce the overall amount of bacteria on the hands, and in some cases they may even increase it.”

I recommend tucking a small bar of natural soap in with the lunch and teaching your child to use it to wash his or her hands before eating. If you can’t find small bars, cut a “kid-size” slice off a large bar.

Help Your School Go Organic

Many schools across America are now going organic with their school lunch programs, and getting great support from students, parents, and local providers of organic food. 

If your child’s school doesn’t yet serve organic food for lunch, suggest they do. Search the internet for “organic school lunch” to learn what is being done in other communities.

Hailed as “The Queen of Green” by the New York Times, Debra Lynn Dadd has been a leading consumer advocate for products and lifestyle choices that are better for health and the environment since 1982. Visit her website to learn more about her book Home Safe Home, to sign up for her free email newsletters, and to browse 100s of links to 1000s of nontoxic, natural and earthwise products.http://www.dld123.com

I love Healthy Child Healthy World’s website and work. They are a non-profit dedicated to educating the public about toxins that  are in our children’s environment. They have a wonderful interactive website that I highly recommend checking out. 

Healthy Child Healthy World has  5 easy steps to a healthier environment for you and your family. Here is the quick summary of 5 things you can do to improve the health of your home:

1. Use safe non-toxic pest control
2. Use Non-toxic cleaning and personal products
3. Clean up your indoor air
4. Eat more organic food
5. Know what plastics are safe to use

What I like about the 5 easy steps is that each step is clearly and simply defined, they offer what to do, a safety checklist, safe solutions, more information, and research studies to back up each easy step

To get started reading about the five easy step from Healthy Child Healthy World

Clearly, there are many steps that can be taken, these are just five. Go get started!

Blessings,
Justyn
Go Natural Baby offers certified organic cotton children’s wear