Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge

I came across this amazingly powerful challenge a bit too late in the year to implement with my kindergarten students, but wanted to share for all you homeschooling mamas & papas. Looking at your environment now gives you plenty of time to plan ahead for a future project that would benefit our planet.

Here is what the site says about Siemens:
Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge is "the only national sustainability challenge that empowers students in every grade level to develop and share environmental solutions that just may change the world!"

The process seems simple:

•Go online. Create a team.

•Brainstorm with your children an environmental change that needs to be addressed in your home, classroom or school.

•Come up with a plan to address the problem and implement the plan.

I really want to do something with lunch waste... both recyclable and compostable. Not sure exactly how to gather data and what to do yet, but I guess that is what next year's kiddos will help me decide.

Please go check out the challenge and consider signing up next school year. The environmental impact alone is enough of a reason for me, but there are prizes too... really BIG prizes.
I could list the prizes for you here, but I really want you to take a look at the site for yourself. I think you just might be interested.

What environmental issue do you think your children could address?

Zen House Cleaning

Is zen house cleaning the way of the witch?  The more I read the more I think it might just be. 

My mom gave me the book: Zen and the Art of Housekeeping for my birthday.  When I first began reading I thought... "This is just crazy.  Housekeeping and 'zen'?  No way!"  But not far into the book, I made a discovery... Everything we do in life has a purpose.  We eat because we need the nutrition.  We sleep to rejuvenate the body and soul.  Why can't housekeeping have some higher purpose that just not living like pigs?

As you read the book (I am actually not that far into it... YET.), you begin to realize that cleaning the home can be very therapeutic and meditative.  After all, how many times have you made a life decision or come to a conclusion about something in life while in that deep thought evoking monotony of vacuuming or scrubbing the dishes?  I know I have, ALOT.

If house keeping can really become a zen experience, maybe (just maybe) I can keep it up.  We do not live in filth (not even close), but it does seem there is always something more interesting, shall I say, than cleaning my home.  Cleaning my home is a chore and not one I like at all. There are always dishes in  the sink and clothes in the washer.  Maybe if I begin to think of these things with a new perspective, my entire outlook on keeping my home the peaceful sanctuary I so desperately need will begin to become a reality.

How to you make cleaning your home a 'zen' experience?

What do you do to make cleaning less of a chore and more enjoyable?