During their childhood, kids use a large amount of glue. Most of them are chemical mixtures with no ingredients listed on the packaging. You can only imagine what’s in there.

Preschoolers love pasting and collage, as well as tasting anything that comes close to their mouths. Besides the awful taste, shop bought glue might not be the perfect substance for their tummies. School kids have (hopefully) learned not to lick the glue, but having it on their skin and, occasionally, all over them, isn’t good either as we know that our skin absorbs anything that’s put on it. Try this old trick to prove it: rub a clove of garlic onto the soles of your feet and after a while you’ll feel the garlicky taste in your mouth!

Whether you would like to avoid a chance of your kids digesting chemical glues, make your house greener and as chemical free as possible or just want to avoid buying stuff and reducing wasteful packaging, the recipe above is a sure winner. There are many natural glue recipes around, but this one is the simplest to make with only 4 ingredients you most probably have on hand. I’ve tried it and it works, not only for paper, but also for gluing chunks of wood.

How to make non toxic homemade glue

• For the ingredients needed, see the recipe on the photo above.
• In a saucepan mix 1 cup of flour with 1/3 cup of sugar.
• Add half of the water required and mix into a thick paste without clumps.
• Pour in the rest of the water and combine till the paste is smooth.
• Pour a teaspoon of vinegar and put on medium heat until the mixture starts to thicken.
• Cool and transfer to jar or an airtight plastic container.

This glue will keep for a few days. Refrigerate to prolong the shelf life (the jar in my fridge is 6 months old).

Vinegar in this glue recipe acts as a mild natural preservative. You might use grapefruit seed extract or tee tree oil (5-10 drops) instead of vinegar to naturally preserve the glue. Stick with vinegar though if you have small kids – not only is this glue non toxic, but perfectly edible too!

This glue needs more time to dry, but when dried, the bond is really strong.

P.S.  At Christmas time I use this glue for card making and add a few drops of anise or cinnamon essential oil to give the cards a nice scent.  If adding dark essential oils or ground cinnamon, bear in mind that the glue will have a slightly brownish colour unlike plain one that becomes almost transparent when dry.

Engaging kids in the organic gardening from an early age has many benefits: it teaches them about nature, sustainability, environment, patience, to appreciate food, etc.  When they are older, gardening will become second nature to them.  By doing it themselves and watching the plants grow, kids learn faster than any other way.  Above all, gardening with kids is heaps of  fun.

Our garden isn’t really big.  We gave up more than half of it to our chickens and started container gardening.  Kids love it because it is more accessible than our veggie patch.  Two most exciting moments for them are when the plants sprout from the seeds and harvest.  From my experience, children are more likely to eat veggies they’ve grown (see the pictures and comments below).

Last weekend we pulled the last beetroot: time to eat cool weather veggies that are remaining and make space for summer crop:

Our chickens got the leaves (young leaves can be tossed into salad) and we had a simple yet very delicious salad of grated fresh beetroot, carrot and Granny Smith apple only seasoned with a bit of lemon juice.  Colourful and yum!

We’ve planted a few sprouting spuds a couple months ago and here we’ve dug up the most delicious new potatoes.  I boiled them and the kids ate them all before they could make it to the plates!

Beautiful pink colour!

Snow peas are also ready for harvest.  I was surprised how quickly they grow.  While picking,  our daughter ate a few raw.  After a brisk boil,  they’ve been eaten in a minute, our son declaring them as delicious!  He wasn’t keen to try snow peas before

Whether you have a huge garden or a few pots on the window sill, get your kids into growing their own plants.  It’s a fun activity, gets the kids outside and let them be responsible for what they’ve planted, from watering to harvest!

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Today is World Environment Day. This year’s theme for the WED is ‘Your Planet Needs You-UNite to Combat Climate Change’.

To celebrate the WED our kids planted the seeds of a beautiful native weeping red bottlebrush tree.  The seeds pack is a promotion of the Melbourne tram company.  See the pictures below:

Eco kids – Planting seeds:

Seeds planted – great addition to our urban garden:

Watering:

Mission accomplished, minor misspelling