You may be tired of constantly nagging at your kids to turn off the lights or shut the front door, but there are loads of innovative and fun ways which you can teach your kids about saving energy. Although having rules and enforcing them is an effective way to make sure that your kids aren’t wasting energy around the home, it’s also about teaching your kids the principles of being energy efficient and instilling that in them as a habit.
Knowing how energy is manufactured and what goes into the production of it is the first step in understanding the need to conserve it. Help educate your kids about being eco-friendly by going to the library, and borrowing books and other media on the subject of energy. Reading these books together and explaining where electricity and energy comes from can help your child understand why it’s important that we don’t leave lights on when leaving a room, or leave electrical devices on when not in use.
Go Electricity Free
Planning a day where your whole household goes electricity free can be a fun adventure for many young children. Designate a day where you don’t use electrical products, and experience what life would be like if we didn’t have electricity. Summer time is probably the best time of year to do this, as you don’t want to be freezing cold if you can’t turn the heating on! Understanding what life without electricity looks like can send a really strong message across to kids – and parents – about how important it is to save it.
Go Outside More
Playing outside doesn’t only have a huge impact on children’s growth and development, it can also help a love for the planet to grow in them. As a family, take part in outdoor activities such as camping, hiking, bike rides or simply having a picnic in a local park. Letting your kids experience nature as much as possible will help them to make the correlation between saving energy and preserving the planet.
Energy Saving Projects
Letting your children help you out with energy saving tasks and projects such as weather stripping or caulking windows can help them to develop an interest in why you are doing it. Kids are inquisitive and love to know why they are doing a certain task, and what happens as a result of it. Explaining to kids that you are sealing around the windows so that hot air doesn’t escape and energy isn’t wasted can help them to understand more about how what we do effects the amount of energy we use.
Elevating simple kids’ games such as ‘I spy’ can be an excellent way to get your kids involved and having fun whilst learning about saving energy. Play ‘I spy’ but only look around for different energy-saving or energy-wasting items. This game can be played absolutely anywhere, and it’ll help your child get used to looking for those kind of details.
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