Animal Jam Rules!

Animal Jam is a super rad online website by National Geographic Kids. It is great for kids who love to explore!

www.animaljam.com

U can earn achievements, play fun games, create your animal, and its free! There is so much more you can do on animal jam 2!!! I have 8 animals. A koala, a rabbit, a tiger, a panda, a seal, a monkey, a wolf, and another seal.

I have a lot of achievements . Achievements rule!

My favorite place in Jamaa is the new Hot Coca Hut.

You can create your own hot coca! This is my usual hot coca I make.

This is my favorite game, Temple of Trivia. I'm great at it!

But do U have FreeChat? If so follow these rules. RULE #1 Think before U type! RULE #2 DON'T say hurtful, or bad words. (This will help U not get reported.) RULE #3 DON'T give out any personal info. This includes zipcode, address, phone number, full name, where you live, and account password. RULE #4 This goes with #3. DON'T meet someone you met online. They might be a person trying 2 hurt U. ALWAYS HAVE A TRUSTED ADULT NEAR BY WHEN USING FREECHAT. For more rules, plz visit animaljam.com.

Making Earth Friendly Home Cleaners

Did you know that some of the chemicals in household products can harm people, animals, and plants? They can pollute the air, water and soil. I decided to make some natural cleaning products for our house so my family can be cleaner and greener!

Glass Cleaner:

1/2 cup white vinegar

4 cups water

a spray bottle

Mix vinegar and water in the spray bottle. Spray glass with the mixture and wipe off dirt with newspaper.

This recipe works so well. I like how you can reuse newspaper to wipe off the cleaner. I was surprised that it works better than the windex and paper towels we were using before!

Furniture Polish:

1 ounce lemon juice

2 ounces cooking oil

a plastic bottle

Mix lemon juice and oil in a plastic bottle. Pour a little on the furniture and polish with a clean, soft cloth.

My dad was worried about this recipe. He wasn't sure it would work, but he let me experiment. We polished one half of the coffee table with my solution and one half with our store-bought polish. Geuss what? Mine worked better!

Both of these recipes are healthy, green, and money saving ways to clean your house.

Is anyone going to try my recipes? Does anyone have other green household cleaner recipes or tips that they want to share? I'll send a prize to the best idea!

Blue Green Algae

While exploring the Redwoods last summer, my family walked down to the Eel River. We couldn’t swim in the river because of blue-green algae warnings, so we made water peepers to help us see down further into the water without going all the way in. We saw water insects, fish, and a snake swimming by. We scooped up water into cups to see what living things would be in it and then let the creatures go. Our exploring made me think of how one drop of water could be a whole microscopic world.

I wanted to find out what blue-green algae is and how it hurts people and animals. I looked it up on-line with help from my mom.

Blue-green algae is also called cyanobacteria. It can make animals sick. There are many cases of pets, especially dogs, dying from exposure to this. It can make people sick too. It can cause eye irritation, allergic skin rash, mouth ulcer, vomiting, diarrhea, and cold and flu-like symptoms.

It is especially harmful to small children.

Phosphorus from manure, fertilizers and untreated sewage helps them to grow thick.

So it sounds like pollution is what causes this blue-green algae to grow. The Eel River is so fun to swim in. I was really sad that I couldn't swim because of pollution. Hopefully it will go away so we can swim in it again.

Oil Spill

At school I learned about the Oil Spill in the Gulf. President Obama calls it "the worst natural disaster in our nation's history." I feel bad about how the oil spill is hurting the animals and the environment. I was sad to see pictures of sea turtles covered in oil. There are 5 species of sea turtles in the Gulf and affected by the spill.

I love sea turtles. We need to protect them. Here is a cool fact sheet about a the species of sea turtles and how they are endangered. Print it out!

http://seaturtles.org/section.php?id=22

Do you love sea turtles too? Are any of your favorite animals affected by the Oil Spill in the Gulf?

Home Recycling Center

Recycling makes old things into new things without having to fill up land fills that take years and years to break down.

You can start a recycling center at your home. Have an

easy-to-get-to bin in your home to put stuff that can be recycled. Have someone take it out to the big recycling bin in the garage when it gets full. Here is a picture of mine. I upcycled a plastic basket that my mom had in the basement for this project. It has handles, so it easy to carry. I put a cute recycling sign in a page protector, then taped it to the side.

In the garage above the recycling can, I put up a poster that I made about recycling. Above that I put a list of all the things that our city will recycle. This is a great idea because it gets us thinking about all the different things that we can recycle. Look on your own city's website to print off a list of things your community recycles.

Since I have created our home recycling center, everyone in the family puts a bigger effort into sorting and recycling the trash. We know more about how recycling works in our neighborhood. It has gotten us in to good recycling habits.

Are any of you going to start a recycling center in your own home?

I want to hear about it if you do!

Be a Litter Getter!

Do not drop garbage on the ground! That is called litter. Litter hurts the animals. They could eat it and get sick. They could get trapped in it. It also hurts the environment. Trash makes beautiful places look bad. If you have garbage when you are outdoors, wait and put it in a trash can. If you see any litter, you should pick it up and throw it in the trash can.

My brother Max and I became Litter Getters when we were camping in Richardson's Grove State Park in California. It felt good to leave the camp clean and better than we found it. We can all be Litter Getters, on vacations and at home.

Rules for being a Litter Getter:

Don't litter.

Encourage your friends to not litter.

Pick up litter when you see it.

Be safe when you are picking up trash. Wear gloves and have an adult pick up dangerous things like glass, cigarette butts, or anything you are not sure of.

What do you think?

Let me know if you want to be a Litter Getter like me!

Dirty Water

Today my family went to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. My favorite part was the Ledges. There was bright emerald green moss on the rocks and cliff edges. We hiked through a cave called the Ice Box. I learned that the Cuyahoga River has caught on fire many times! It was so dirty, that it actually burned.

The fire in 1969 inspired Earth Day, the Evironmental Protection Agency, and the Clean Water Act.

Wow! Dirty water!