By Jean Bentley

As Earth Day, April 22, approaches, why not treat your kids with an environmentally friendly toy? Whether made from organic materials or simply an old-fashioned game that encourages playing outside or using your imagination, there are plenty of green toys on the market that will allow your children to be kind to Mother Earth while having fun.

For an activity that will allow your children to give back to the environment, try a Grow Your Own Tree kit from DuneCraft. Celebrate Arbor Day on April 25 and plant one of five different varieties of trees: apple, elm, gingko, palm, and pine. Each kit comes with its own planting equipment and a biodegradable planting pot. Five percent of proceeds go to the Arbor Day Foundation.

The tree-growing kits aren’t the only clever botanical toys available from DuneCraft. Teach conservation with terrariums, windowsill greenhouses, and cactus gardens. The company has made a commitment to use organic, biodegradable, or recyclable material wherever possible, and makes all products domestically.

Another enviro-happy company, Blue Orange, was awarded the first annual green toy award from Dr. Toy last year. This year, they’ve vowed to plant two trees for every one they use for their games. Because each tree makes about 35 games, they anticipate planting more than 10,000 trees in 2008. Though the toys are designed stateside, all the lumber comes from a forest in central China. Try the fast-paced Froggie Boogie, an all-wooden memory game for kids 4 and up.

For toys that encourage creativity and imagination in your kids, take a look at products by Melissa & Doug. The company’s 2008 catalog is chock full of toys from stuffed animals to card games.

A family- and travel-friendly kit is the Farm Memory Game. Kids ages 5 and up can enjoy the traditional memory game. It comes with a game board, seven double-sided cards, and a two-person scoreboard. Melissa & Doug also makes wood toys, a far more Earth-conscious choice than plastic.

Beka, a company from St. Paul, Minnesota, handmakes wooden toys made out of hard maple, a renewable resource they call stable, “heirloom quality material.” Beka’s known for its sturdy easels and puppet theaters You can never go wrong wih an old standby, so why not try the Hard Maple Unit Blocks, comprised of rectangles, arches, triangles, and columns.

Another old standby is a science kit from Thames & Kosmos, a company started by a Connecticut mother in 2001. Designed to teach most every kind of science (biology, physics, astronomy, etc.), the kits come in traditional chemistry or even candy- or cosmetics-making varieties.

For Earth Day, try a fuel cell car experiment kit, which provides all the equipment to build a model car that runs on water, or a renewable energy kit, which allows you to build a small wind turbine that can power a small rechargable battery or lift a small weight.

If your child is too young for science experiments, you can simply instill a love of nature with Wild Republic’s realistic plush animal toys. Choose from jungle animals, birds, bugs, and many more. They also make Steve and Bindi Irwin brand toys. Wild Republic distributes the toys to zoos and aquariums in addition to toy shops, so you know their designs are true-to-life. Our favorites are the Cuddlekins, which come in five different sizes and a variety of animals—from pandas to lions to kangaroos.

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