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    Home » Sponsor » {GE Family Craft Night} Avoid The Summer Slide

    {GE Family Craft Night} Avoid The Summer Slide

    Published: Jun 10, 2012 · Modified: Mar 7, 2023 by Tonia Larson

    This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.

    This post is sponsored by Collective Bias. All opinions are my own.
     
    electricity savings white board
    Is it important to you to keep your kids learning over the summer or do you give them a break?  I do a little of both!  I don’t want them to experience too much of a “summer slide” but I also want them to really enjoy their summer vacation.  So, I try to sneak in some learning by doing fun activities in which they don’t realize they are learning!  I will share some of them with you this summer.  Yesterday we had a GE Family Craft Night…well, actually it turned into more of a GE Family Craft Day between the shopping, replacing bulbs and making the tri-fold display!  We did a lighting makeover and then calculated the savings!  Recently, I posted about our living room lighting makeover and wanted to extend the energy savings to other rooms in our house.
    boy writing in notebook
    The first step was to go around the house to count every light bulb in every room and outside.  The kids added up the bulbs (have to keep those addition facts sharp in their minds) and came up with a total of 67 bulbs!

    lightbulbs at store
    Next, we went shopping at Walmart to look for GE Energy Smart bulbs as well as an Elmer’s Tri-Fold Board for making a display.  We ended up buying 25 light bulbs and spending just over $100.
    ipad calculator

    It was hard finding all of the bulbs we needed but Vanessa and Zack helped me and we eventually figured it out. During the shopping trip, we kept track of the cost with a calculator app on our iPad (more math skills).  We had to do some problem solving when they didn’t have the bulbs we wanted for our chandelier.  When the price tags on the shelves didn’t match, we had to do some more math and some more problem solving.

    ge light bulbs

     Back home, we gathered together the GE Energy Star light bulbs we had purchased and got to work.

    before and after new bulbs

    We went room by room replacing as many of the bulbs as we could.

    preparing white board

    Then we started on the tri-fold board. We drew a large light bulb in the center and used my X-ACTO knife to cut away the outside part.  Then, we pulled out some Mod Podge Glow-In-The-Dark and some metallic & glitter paints.  Vanessa applied the Mod Podge to the bright part of the light bulb and Zack painted the silver part of the light bulb.

    tallying light bulbs

    Once the paint had dried we filled out the board using paint markers.

    savings calculator

    Next, we went to GE’s website and used their GE Energy Smart CFL Saving Calculator.  We replaced 25 bulbs and I added the 4 energy efficient living room bulbs from the previous post.  I got on my electric company’s website and figured out that we pay an average of $0.13 kilowatt/hr, which is more than the average of $0.10.  This diagram shows our savings!

    savings white board

    On the left side of the board, we put the tally of all the light bulbs in our house.   In the middle we put the money we will save.  On the right we each thought of a thing or two that we could buy with the money we will save.  My kid’s favorite part was the glow-in-the-dark bulb.  I tried to take a picture of the glowing bulb to add to the post but even with a slow shutter speed, it didn’t work.  It sure does look neat though! We were all amazed with how much money this will save us.  Hopefully we can continue replacing bulbs until all 67 of them are energy efficient.

    How do you plan to help you kids avoid the summer slide?

    Collective Bias reserves all copyright rights in the original works of authorship included in the shoppertunity guidelines.  The shoppertunity guidelines are being sent to you as a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® community.  Any other reproduction, distribution, display, performance, modification or use of these shoppertunity guidelines is prohibited, unless expressly authorized in writing by Collective Bias.

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    About Tonia Larson

    Hi! I’m Tonia, the owner and recipe creator at The Gunny Sack, where I’ve shared easy recipes for busy people for 12+ years! My family-friendly meals, easy side dishes, and delicious desserts include mouthwatering photos, dynamic videos, and step-by-step instructions to help you cook at home.

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    Comments

    1. John says

      June 20, 2012 at 12:39 am

      Awesome post. I’m having dinner with the GE folks and the Elmer’s folks called and told us about it!

      Reply
    2. Mama Luvs Books says

      June 10, 2012 at 7:51 pm

      Great way to assess and see how you’re doing! And a fantastic lesson for the kids!!!

      Reply
    3. Kathy says

      June 10, 2012 at 6:10 pm

      Great Project – just look at those savings add up!

      Reply
    4. Andrea Kruse says

      June 10, 2012 at 5:06 pm

      That is a great savings! And such a fun way to teach the kids about conservation, savings and being green.

      Reply
    5. Terri says

      June 10, 2012 at 4:49 pm

      What a wonderful way to motivate your family to green up! Loved this!

      Reply
    6. Amy F says

      June 10, 2012 at 3:55 pm

      That’s some impressive savings there! I have so many bulbs that I still need to transition that I’m scared to count them! (And this is AFTER swapping out some!)

      Reply
    7. Laura says

      June 10, 2012 at 2:23 pm

      I love my CFL bulbs and almost have everything replaced to them. Curious, what did you do with the incandescent bulbs that were still good?

      Reply
    8. Anne @ Domesblissity says

      June 10, 2012 at 2:16 pm

      Oh, those poor kids of yours Tonia! (LOL Just kidding. I think my kids would enjoy doing something like that too on their vacation.) I’m surprised how many bulbs you’ve got in your house. Besides my living area, which has 3, I’ve only got 1 bulb in each other room in the house. What’s that? A puppy I see on the ‘wish list’? LOLAnne xx

      Reply

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    Tonia Larson and Brian LarsonHi, We are Brian and Tonia Larson! We hope you enjoy our family-friendly meals, easy side dishes, and tasty desserts!
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