… that have caught my attention lately:
- Here’s a super simple, inexpensive spray you can make to clean fruits and veggies at home:
Susan Sumner, a food scientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, developed a solution that is an effective disinfecting procedure to clean those conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables. It is non-toxic and inexpensive, and can also be used to sanitize your kitchen counters and food preparation surfaces such as wooden cutting boards. She simply uses white vinegar (or cider vinegar) and 3% hydrogen peroxide (the same as found at the drugstore). Put each solution into 2 spray bottles. Spray your produce (or work surface) with the vinegar and follow with the hydrogen peroxide. Then rinse the produce under running water or wipe the surface with a clean, wet sponge.
- Yahoo’s Healthy Living section has this simple chart of 9 food ingredients to avoid, what they do and why they’re bad. This is great info if you’re unclear why brominated vegetable oil is added to soda anyway or you want something concrete to convince your mother-in-law that yes, food coloring really does cause hyperactivity and other problems for lots of children and there’s a reason to stop filling your kids up with red Kool-aid and Skittles. 😉
- I’m really enjoying the Let the Children Play blog from a preschool teacher in Australia. Much of the focus is on how to make outdoor spaces good for children, especially related to nature and the senses.
- Likewise, I’m loving irresistible ideas for play based learning, also from an Australian preschool and also focused on outdoor play spaces for children.
Any neat blogs or sites or ideas on your radar this week?
So…. does anyone really fill their kids with Kool Aid and Skittles!?!?! I’d LOVE to be a fly on the wall at THAT house!!!!
Tiffany, I know an awful lot of grandparents who do!
Thank you so much for the lovely mention 🙂 I’m glad you are enjoying my blog. I too am a big fan of Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning – I am caught up in their current venture of creating a dry creek bed in their Hush Garden. Very inspiring – and very lucky children at their preschool.
Oh, and I’d be scraping my kids off the ceiling if I filled them with Kool Aid and Skittles!
Thanks for the helpful tips (esp. the “make-your-own-veg-wash tip.) Also, as always, I love your “10 ways to make today magical” posts!
Thanks for turning me on to Teacher Tom – he is amazing. I loved his recent art project: Fly Swatter Painting. And my favorite lesson:
“The best messes are the ones that just happen when you’re too busy playing to notice.”
He even goes so far as to tell us that most of the paintings went in the recycle bin – but that really wasn’t the point of the project. Sometimes we (I know I do) get so caught up in displaying and keeping every piece of art work our kids create that we forget that the experience is often the most important aspect – not the finished product.
Oh I agree! Those are the sorts of projects that are the most fun for kids by far too! 🙂