Win Two Eco-Fun Books For Kids
This week has 3 events going on. it’s TV Turnoff Week, Earth Day is tomorrow, and this week is the Bloggy Giveaway. I thought I would combine the three and offer a prize for the giveaway that parents can use to entertain their kids without a TV and be more environmentally friendly.
This week I am offering two books to one lucky winner.
D.I.Y.: Kids
D.I.Y. Kids encourages young readers to use basic design principles and on-hand materials to express their individuality through more than eighty imaginative projects. The book is divided into four sections—Graphics, Toys, Home, and Fashion—each packed with ideas for making fun and useful items, including step-by-step instructions and colorful photographs of cool designs and the kids who made them.
D.I.Y. Kids is designed to trigger imaginative play, it’s for parents, teachers, aunts and uncles, friends and babysitters, neighbors and citizens—anyone who wants to create a better world not only for, but also with, the next generation. Ellen Lupton is a curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the director of the graphic design MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the author of numerous books, including D.I.Y. Design It Yourself and Thinking with Type. She received a Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement from the AIGA in 2007.
Gr. 3-7. Much more than just a craft book, this title includes a brief history of trash–illustrated in a colorful “trash timeline”–that shows how the invention of disposable products and packaging has created increasing waste. Another diagram shows the “anatomy of a landfill.” Organized into sections based on common recyclable materials (paper, plastic, metal, fabric), the easy-to-follow, mostly appealing projects include a “Fancy Foil Fish” aluminum mobile, paper jewelry, and milk-carton castles. Each section has useful information about the material being used, such as a chart that deciphers the codes used in various plastic products. Throughout, Martin makes suggestions for “living lightly” on Earth, although in many cases (purchasing choices, for example), kids will have to pass on the tips to their parents. Illustrated with cheerful cartoon drawings and color photos of the finished projects, and bolstered by many resource lists, this is a surprisingly attractive, substantive offering that is just the thing for teachers planning Earth Day activities.
If you want to win both of these great books here is all you have to do. Leave a comment on this post between April 21-25. If you share a fun activity that your kids love to do without the TV or that’s eco-friendly your comment will count twice.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:47 am
[...] sure to also check out what I’m giving away at Mom Is Teaching! Did You Enjoy this Post? Subscribe to The Attached Mother. It’s Free! « Back Home Posted [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 7:04 am
These books look great!! Today, my kids and I are planning to do some gardening work…work on puzzles together…and work with some clay to make some art projects. Fun!
April 21st, 2008 at 7:36 am
great books love the craft book!
April 21st, 2008 at 8:14 am
Love craft books. For us we love to play board games or a new game called the Magic Square, it’s where they guess the number you are thinking. Learned it from another board game. Other than that we enjoy the outdoors and walking up town to get a frozen yogurt.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:38 am
I love these books! I’d love to have a resource like this to help my kids find worthwhile projects this summer. My daughter (11)wrote a series on earth-friendly practices last year. She would really like these books.
Our kids like to play out in the woods. Except for the ticks, its an awesome way to get away from the TV. Thanks for hosting! I’m hosting 3 contests this week. Stop by!
April 21st, 2008 at 8:39 am
What awesome books! I have never heard of them before. I’m going to see if my library carries them. Thanks!
April 21st, 2008 at 8:42 am
Books! What’s not to love?
D.I.Y. books! Even better!
April 21st, 2008 at 8:50 am
I’d love these books. I’m starting to think about summer vacation and we love to make things together.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:34 am
Both books look awesome!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:58 am
Both of these books look great! My 4 & 6 year old’s favorite outdoor activity was actually inspired by a tv show called Ninja Warrior. Every day they spend a couple of hours creating an obstacle course with several phases & then compete against their own times (complete with commentary !)
April 21st, 2008 at 10:04 am
Those books look fun. We have a big old plastic storage tub that we fill with a layer of sand, some walnut sized rocks, and water. The kids love making mud pies, “fishing”,splashing each other, etc. After a few days it is emptied onto the lawn-
kids+water=FUN
April 21st, 2008 at 10:19 am
This is really nice!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:28 am
I home school, too. I’ve added you to my faves. Looks like you have tons of useful information for me.
http://www.momstop.blogspot.com
April 21st, 2008 at 10:34 am
Those books look awesome!! My kids spend most of every day engrossed in their own imaginary world where they are mommies, babies, big sisters, nannies . . . you name it. They cook food, work on their “farm” (it’s in the basement, they get so mad when I do things like oh . . . slide a box out of the way so I can go down the stairs LOL), go to the “beach” (yellow playsilk for the sand, blue playsilk for the water, sort through the puppets & stuffed animals for ocean critters, put some shells on the “sand” and they’re all ready for a day at the beach) . . . the possibilities are endless!
April 21st, 2008 at 11:42 am
Both of those books look great!! Thanks for the giveaway
April 21st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
My kids love to draw and color. We do this a lot with nature notebooks.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
i would so love to win these!!! my children know all about recycling and being good stewards of the earth- we make monthly tripsoutside with the express purpose of cleaning up trash we find
April 21st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
My son loves coming with me to recycle the newspaper. We always walk there, so that makes it even more fun, since going on walks is second only to playgrounds for him.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Both books look very good, thanks! FlipFlopsChels@msn.com
April 21st, 2008 at 2:00 pm
We do mostly non-TV activities. Aside from reading together (we homeschool so lots of reading), we garden, play outside, ride bikes, do fingerpainting, etc.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Awesome giveaway!
Gardening is big right now with my girls and a lot of reading.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
We like to play board games together. Our new favorite is ImaginIff…
April 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[...] also have two other giveaways going on. Free books for creative, tree hugging kids and a free baby sling for any mama or [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
My son’s new favorite game is Old Maid.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
This looks great. Enter me in.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Well, I’m pregnant with my first baby, so while I don’t yet know what my kids will like to do away from the TV, I HOPE that they will love playing outside: climbing trees, getting dirty, being imaginative and creative!
April 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
We take stuff from the rcycle bin and use them to make art and for plant starters
April 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
My daughters would love these, since they adore doing crafts. I’d love to win! Thank you for the chance =)
April 21st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
My kiddos love to play board games with us.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Thanks so much for the links earlier..I tried to email but it wasn’t working properly. The books are terrific!
April 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I don’t actually have children, but my sister would love this (she’s twelve). We like to make stuff together… she makes the cutest little flower fairies out of fake flowers. The flower upside down is the dress, and then she glues a little wooden head and some embroidery floss for hair and draws eyes and stuff on the head. So cute.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Hi, In the summertime, the neighborhood children love to have water gun duels! So that my hose or faucet outdoors isn’t constantly running, my husband put a nozzle on a drywall bucket and I fill it up! Please enter me in your book drawing. Thanks,Cindi
April 21st, 2008 at 8:41 pm
We love to play outside! We actually don’t watch a lot of TV here anyways.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Those books look wonderful.
We always try to make crafts with scraps of things. We take boxes and make them into things to build.
Thanks for the fun giveaway!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Oh man I would LOVE to have them!! Connor spends most of his time in this everything box.. basicly its a box where I put all sorts of random things from around the house from him to play with.. mind you he has great toys.. but wooden spoons are better?
I am hosting my own bloggy carnival over at Seven Dogs right now!! Connor’s First Birthday Blog Bash is featuring over $530 in prizes. Come check it out!!
http://www.sevendogsandababy.com
April 21st, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I would love to have those books! Roo is actually pretty self-motivated. She likes to play “ice cream shop” with twigs and wood scraps from her daddy’s studio right now.
stop by and enter my contests sometime!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:44 pm
My son’s all-time favorite thing to do is read books! Besides that he enjoys “gardening” with me. I would love to win these books!
April 21st, 2008 at 11:22 pm
we love books and my son loves going for walks/rides on his bike in the park
April 21st, 2008 at 11:46 pm
These books look great! my little boy loves to do puzzles instead of watching TV!
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:55 am
These books are right up my alley! My kids love to pull items from the recycling bin to make their crafts. And this week in absence of TV, the kids played with some homemade play doh.
And here’s a shout out from another HSing mom!
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 am
I am lucky that my boys would rather go outside and ride bikes, rather than watch TV in the afternoons. That’s why I am thankful for warm weather finally. Thanks for the entry.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:39 am
When it is nice out, my kids would rather be outside then watching tv luckily. They like to roller skate & ride bikes the most. We also have a tree swing & the neighbor has a sandbox & swing set. In the house, my girls really enjoy scrapbooking. An activity that might be fun for girls & boys would be an altered notebook or maybe a nature journal. I think that DIY book has a website that talks about altered notebooks. I have really been wanting that book the website is very cool, the book has to be even better!
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:32 am
My 3 year old and I love to play in the “garden”. Right now, we’ve left off the fancy stuff and are only planting wildflowers in order to attract honeybees. Just doing our part to save the fuzzy lil’ guys!
Check out my giveaway: http://ojoyofmylife.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-carnival.html
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
My kids love to do lots of TV-less activities like crafts, gardening, going to the park, riding bikes…These books would be wonderful for ideas to do with them.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
I don’t have kids, but I am a teacher. I encourage them to do lots of outdoor activities and get off the phone/tv/video games!
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
My son loves to play in the sandbox in our backyard. He loves arts and crafts. We have lots of art supplies at our home. You can never have too much glue, construction paper, crayons, etc.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
We live in the country and love to go for walks and pick up trash that people have thrown out of their cars.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
How neat my kids would love this. katie_mmartin (at)yahoo [dot] com
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
This books look awesome. I love doing crafts, especially with recycled items (that I don’t have to buy!). My son LOVES to “work” in the garden. He also likes to cut old paper with fancy edge scissors. He is only 3 1/2 so very easy to entertain without technology!
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Hmmm, the boys (ages 2 and 4) are currently really into digging up my garden to get it ready for planting. You should have seen their eyes when I told them the whole thing needed to be dug up - it was like I just gave them an ice cream cone with sprinkles! I would like to build them a sunflower hideout when they get older - for now I think my 2 year old would just plow down the plants. Thank you!
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm
i’m not sure if this counts as eco-friendly, but i teach my kids to move snakes and turtles to the other side of the road, we regularly “save” baby birds, and plant trees.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Bubbles. It’s so simple but it’s amazing how much fun it is. We head outside and just have fun for hours. TV can’t do that!
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Those look like really fun books.
My girls and I love to ride our bikes in pretty weather. Great exercise!
Thank you for doing this giveaway.
Tiffany Rosson
tiffanyannrosson AT yahoo DOT com
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
My kiddos LOVE “painting” with water. We just go outside (yay for spring) and have little buckets of water and different sizes of paintbrushes. They “paint” the sidewalk, the stairs, the fence, the railings…the water gets REALLY gross fast, so it’s a battle with the baby, who just wants to suck on the wet brushes. But other than that, it’s one of our favorite outside activities.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
My kids love to look at the stars and the moon. It gets us outside and gives them a better understanding of how small our world is in the scheme of things.
We also like to visit the different parks in our area. We always start with a park “clean-up” and then we get to play. My kids would never dream of littering, because of this.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
We love to garden with our kids!
I would love to win this! Please enter me.
taradawnrobertson[at]hotmail[dot]com
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
First of all your “about” paragraph cracked me up.
These are my favorite kind of books! My kids have been cutting up giant cereal boxes from Sam’s lately and making them into all kinds of things (most recently space helmets) I have some funny pictures that I plan to blog this week.
If I don’t win, I’m going to have to find those books!
Melissa~
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Sound like great great books!! Thanks so much for playing!
If you get a minute, stop by my blog and enter my giveaway - http://threepsinapod.blogspot.com/2008/04/bloggy-giveaway-time.html#links
Thanks!
Alyson @ 3 P’s
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
The books do look fun, and my son loves arts and crafts. I don’t always pursue them as often as he’d like, mostly due to the mess.
Our favorite TV-free activity, especially this time of year, is to get our garden ready and start growing vegetables. Today we turned over the garden bed and added compost from our bin. We studied the earth worms in the soil and talked about how they’d spent the winter turning old garden clippings into something that will now feed new plants.
Then we planted radishes, peas, lettuces, spinach and sweet peas — cool season plants which grow quickly. He helped me divide the planting bed into rows (reinforcing math skills) and we talked about how likely we are to each each variety of vegetable (which led to more peas and fewer radishes). He was curious how the seeds grew into plants so we also got to discuss scientific principles he’ll now be seeing in action over the next few weeks.
He’s now in charge of watering the veggie bed every morning. To help that out we’ve been catching rain water in a barrel that has a spigot from which he can fill his can. We also made a batch of “compost tea” to continue fertilizing the seeds naturally.
The best part about it, aside from the way it gets us outdoors and away from the television, is that it helps him connect the food he eats for dinner with the whole production-consumer cycle and the importance of caring for the plants and earth around us. Plus I know he’ll be more likely to eat peas that he’s grown on his own… maybe even spinach, too… and they’ll have more micro-nutrients in them than, say, the hydroponically grown stuff in the store.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
These books would be very handy
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 pm
My son and I love to plant flowers and watch them grow.
Great site! Thanks for the awesome giveaway!
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
We like to garden
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
We LOVE to go for bike rides, be outdoors, and weed the garden!
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I taught the seven year old I babysit how to knit and right now we’re working on using old plastic shopping bags to make a reusable one for the grocery store.
Sadly, my niece is too young to do anything like this, being seventeen hours old. I’m still a hilariously avid parentblog reader.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I’d love these! We don’t even own a tv so I wouldn’t know where to begin. The kids love being outside, playing card games, board games, any kind of game. We like to cook and sew. Craft and draw.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I love the craft book, thanks for doing this giveaway.
galedrial@hotmail.com
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 pm
We’ve been talking a lot about sustainability and have spent the last month in the garden. The girls love it and are dirty dirty dirty and loving it!
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 am
We love reading aloud, doing crafts, playing outside, cooking together etc. We do have a t.v. we play videos on sometimes, but no actual t.v. reception :).
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:24 am
Books - yay! These look great! Thanks!
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
These look great! My daughter is too young to do anything eco friendly on her own, but we use cloth diapers…maybe that can count for her
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
My kiddos love to build forts in the house. they will use blankets and chairs and tables and make forts…it is so fun!!! They also LOVE being outside!
These books look fantastic and I would love to win them to do with my kids! Thanks! 
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
One of our favorite things to do is make collages out of used magazines. Sometimes we have a theme, other times it is very random. We love to just get out the glue, scissors and crayons and make a big ole mess! Thanks for the giveaway!
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
One thing my daughter and I love to do is color on scrap paper. She’s only two, so we keep things simple.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
My kids use discarded cardboard and egg cartons in their artwork. Fun and eco-friendly.
We would love to win these books!
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I would love to use these books in my classroom! I love to stubs of broken crayons and melt it between wax paper to make butterflies or suncatchers.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Searching out different types of bugs (but NOT catching them) is always fun. Thanks for the giveaway!
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I would love to win these books. Not only am I an artist, but an art teacher. I could really use some inspiration near the end of the year. I’d love to try some wild and crazy ideas next school year. Something totally out of character.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Both books look great. My kids would love them.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Those books look great! My kids love gardening but more than that, they love to eat the fruits and veggies that we grow. I usually don’t have enough beans to can because of the small amount that actually makes it into the house after they get done picking! They also pick up garbage when they see it. We have alot of school kids that pass by before and after school and it seems that everything that falls just stays there.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:16 am
My son would love to have those books (and hopefully my other children will learn to like them as they get a little older and understand). He has been learning about recycling and reusing at school the past few weeks and he has been practicing and getting on to me about things at home! We don’t have tv, so we don’t have to turn it off.
Thanks for the great giveaway!
April 24th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Let’s see…I love to go with my son to his boy scouts meetings. They do a lot of eco-friendly projects and always try to pick up where others don’t.
My son and I have also been trying to find ways other than recycling to be more earth friendly around the house. It’s been fun to try to figure it all out together
Have fun this week with your giveaway. Don’t forget to head on over to my blog and sign up for mine!
April 24th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Please enter me. While my nephew does have movies he likes to watch, he’d rather be doing stuff away from the TV. So this would be good for him. Thanks.
Heidi
sweet_soul_sistermi@yahoo.com
April 24th, 2008 at 9:41 am
What fun books! I think the outside is a wonderland for kids! Even a little bug can capture their imagination! Thanks for the great giveaway!
April 24th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
You are very funny. I laughed out loud!
Your books are wonderful…provide hours of bonding and creating! I enjoyed my visit, thank you!
April 24th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I love the books. I have a cabinet set up with different materials so the kids can go and build their own crafts. That’s usually what they do when they aren’t allowed to watch t.v. They are forced to use their imagination and come up with some pretty wild things. One child wants to be an inventor when he grows up.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
My kids like to build whole lego empires and act out conflicts and strugles between them kind of good vs evil in lego world. They also like to write stories
April 24th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Hm…we are currently in a “no tv” week here and we’ve been doing TONS of fun things!! A few activity ideas I can share: Miniature car wash with tubs, foam bath soap, and toy cars and trains….making homemade pizza….making homemade bread….making a caterpillar out of the letters of the alphabet written on paper plates…..playing Memory…..doing sand art….going on walks.
Thanks for the excellent giveaway! ( meg.wilson@gmail.com )
April 24th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
We are “no tv” this week, too. My DD loves to explore the acreage around our house in search of fairies and wood sprites. FUN!
April 24th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
We take turns picking games to play. We also love playing all sorts of sports.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
These sound like wonderful books, Summer! Thanks for the chance.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:34 am
These books look great.
We like to work in the garden together, growing your own veggies saves on going to the store and thusly less gas! thnx for the giveaway
April 25th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I despise the TV! My boys love Legos!
Thanks for the chance to win.
http://tonsofsons.wordpress.com/
April 25th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
We love to play with our home made shape sorter. We have taken an old cereal box and cut out shapes in the cardboard. Then we made shapes out of the other side so she can try to put the shapes in the holes.
It’s not the most creative thing, but hey, she’s only 9 months old. She’s not exactly using scissors yet!
Thanks for the giveaway!
April 25th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I’m a homeschooling mom of hands-on kids & these would be used a lot at our house. Thanks for the contest.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
my 5 kids love to build contraptions from duct tape and recycled boxes and bits. we’ve had pirate ships, car tracks, doll houses and even sandals.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Lovely post. Please add my email address to your list and email me the updates if possible. I always like to read your blog and comment on it.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:20 am
Hey, I found your site a few hours ago and have been through all the posts and comments steadily. I decided should post my firstpost. Unsure of what to comment but here goes. Cool blog. Will come back in a while to hear more of what youve got to offer.