Composting for Kids - Safe Ways to Involve your Children and Care for the Environment.

Composting is a natural, biological process wherein materials that are organic in nature are broken down, releasing nutrients and minerals. The moment that the plants or leaves begin to wilt and die then they will soon decay and will provide needed nutrients for the soil.

People find composting a lot of help, and it can greatly improve the quality of the garden and its produce. In fact, composting has been proven to be one of the greatest things that an individual can do for his or her garden. Composting is cheap, effective, and it is an environmentally friendly way of acquiring the right kind of fertilizer for the garden. Even your kids can safely join in preparing the compost, and it is the great way to teach them to care for the environment and keep a close contact with nature.

Everyone needs to have contact with nature. It is who we are.

Simple Composting Project to Start with your Kids!

Children simply love to help out and savor the moment when they still do and grab the chance to teach them well about composting and other environmentally friendly approaches. Building a simple compost project is a great way to teach them early about how caring for the environment can really help a lot.

Composting is clean and safe although it results in the creation of dirt for a good cause. As biodegradable wastes decompose, it turns into very good quality topsoil that can be used for the garden.

In your yard or garden, let your child or children explore. Let them look for the ideal spot, to gather your biodegradable wastes like peelings, fallen leaves, dead plants, grass, and many others that should decompose but will not give out some strong intolerable scent. The spot must not be within direct sunlight.

The moment you and your children have found the ideal spot then it is time to prepare for the bin that you are going to use. You need to clear the spot first of grass. It is important to remember that when you are building a decomposing bin, be sure to provide enough space for air to circulate to the pile. Using chicken wire and scrap wood posts are good materials for building the bin aside from the fact that they can be found lying around your area. You will also need a hammer and staple gun. If you dont have a staple gun then prepare some nails. Now you are ready to make your compost bin.

Building the Compost Bin

Gather the pieces of scrap woods and prepare the frame for the area of the bin. You will need to hammer the posts to the ground to mark the area for your bin. Secure the chicken wire around the posts by stapling the wire to the posts to create a nice bin using a staple gun. If there is no staple gun available, then secure the wire using some nails. Your compost bin is ready, and it needs to have a nice base to get things started.

Call upon the kids once more to help pile up the bin with some leaves, dead plants, sticks, or peels to put into the bin. You will need at least a four inch base of waste materials. Tell your children the things that they can only put in the compost bin.

Teach your Children Things to put in the Compost Bins and What not to put
in the compost pile.

You can specifically tell your children first what kinds of things they can put like peelings, vegetable trimmings, tea bags, coffee grounds with included filter, some paper, egg shells, leaves, grass, wool, clippings in the yard, lint in the vacuum cleaner, shredded newspaper, ashes in the fireplace, sawdust, sticks, and other things in the garden that needs to be dispose of.

Tell your children that they cannot put in things that are not biodegradable like plastics, cans, tins, or toys. Plastic wrappers, no matter how small they might be, must not be thrown in the compost bin. Teach them the value of segregation so that they will be able to bring it until adulthood.

Every few weeks, you will need to turn the compost using a pitchfork. This task is especially for adults and no children must try. The action of turning it with pitchfork will help circulate the air and evenly distribute the moisture. You should see worms already doing their job as part of the decomposition process. The pile of compost should be okay in three to six months time, and you'll know you have the good compost the moment you see crumbly and dark compost that has uniform texture.

It is true that the children today are our future, and to make certain that we will have a bright future they must be properly educated on how to help the environment.