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Strollerderby
Ever grabbed your kid for a ride down the slide? Me too – we were both wrong.
A new study says parents who pop the kids on their laps to slip down the slide at the playground are unwittingly putting their children at risk for leg fractures. Continue reading »
I’m sure you can relate to this dilemma: How to keep toddlers from drinking the sprinkler water at the park? Across the world though, millions of mothers wish they had this problem. UNICEF reports that more than 5,000 children die every day as a result of unclean drinking water. But wait! There is good news, too, and while it comes from an unexpected place, it’s one that you know well – the playground!
After witnessing the scarcity of clean drinking water in South Africa, and watching mothers and daughters spend hours each day collecting and carrying questionably potable water, social entrepreneur and former ad exec Trevor Field introduced an ingenious new system for pumping water. He’d stumbled across a farmer who’d hooked a pump up to a merry-go-round and decided to bring the idea to scale.
With the PlayPump, mums can watch as their children joyfully spin round and round on their new merry-go-round, knowing that each spin pumps deep clean ground water into a tank which feeds to a nearby tap and storage container. Don’t you love great ideas?
Brought to fruition in the late 1990s, the PlayPump has gained momentum recently with support from the likes of Jay-Z, AOL cofounder Steve Case and his wife, Jean, Bill Clinton and Laura Bush. You can find the PlayPump across sub-Saharan Africa. The goal for new PlayPump installations involves a lot of 10’s: reaching 10 million people in 10 African countries by 2010.
You’ll never look at the merry-go-round in quite the same way, will you?
- Emily Frost
Source: PBS Frontline.
Photo courtesy of PlayPumps International.
A 14-month-old Denver girl has third degree burns on her leg because she had the crazy idea to kneel down on a playground mat.
Her mother, Jeni LaPlante, says that the experience was “traumatizing” for her and daughter Annabelle. Continue reading »
Today on Babble:
By Erin Blakeley
Why do we wear yoga pants while our daughters wear tutus?
Read it here.
No matter how education-packed you want your summer vacation to be, sometimes the kids just have to blow off some steam. But you don’t have to blow mega bucks at an amusement park to make it happen.
Just find a playground. But not just ANY playground will do, so we’ve found someone who can help. Continue reading »
So much for going green. The Environmental Protection Agency flip-flopped this week on the safety of that recycled rubber meant to cushion your kid’s hind end when they come flying off the slide at their favorite park.
The EPA has long championed the recyled tires as good for the environment. Not anymore. Continue reading »
They try so hard to keep their kids healthy, but parents in New York City say all those organic lunches and fruit salad snacks are losing out to the lure of the ice cream truck. Continue reading »
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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