Winter days are usually filled with indoor activities. Keep the little ones occupied with a few downloadable coloring books and environmentally friendly crayons.

Soy crayons were introduced by pencil maker Dixon-Ticonderoga in 1997. They are made with soybean oil instead of petroleum derived oils. Soy crayons boast brighter colors than their oil based counterparts, glide smoother along the coloring surface and are non-toxic.

Another green coloring option are Crazy Crayons. Crazy Crayons were created by LuAnn Foty as a creative gift one holiday season by melting down and giving new life to old, worn down crayons around her house. She created the Crayon Recycle Program to rescue crayons that would otherwise be discarded. For every pound of unwanted crayons donated to the cause, she'll send out a Crazy Crayon in return. Today Crazy Crayons come in all sorts of fun shapes and sizes (in recycled packaging of course!)

If you'd prefer to color within the lines instead of creating your own drawings there are plenty of downloadable coloring books online.

Here's just a few eco-minded ones (of the many available out there):
Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance
US Environmental Protection Agency
Listing of coloring books created by US government agencies
UK based Activity Village has compiled a long list including earth day themed coloring pages

Remember to use recycled paper or reuse the backside of already used paper when printing!

Soy crayons tip via AmericanInventorSpot and are available from Dixon-Ticonderoga (where we also found the picture above.)

Crazy Crayons have been featured on Treehugger and are also available at 3r Living. Find out more about Crazy Crayons and the Crayon Recycling Program here.