Here are my family's favorite activities to celebrate Earth Day:
- Watch the movie Wall-E which is about a garbage collecting robot that has been left behind to clean up an abandoned, polluted earth.
- Watch the movie The Lorax, which is made from a treasured Dr. Seuss classic. It teaches young children about the importance of caring for our Earth and not polluting. I love the vibrant colors and images in this movie which makes it one of my favorites to watch with my family for Earth Day.
- Read the book The Wump World
by Bill Peet. It is a pro-environment book that is entertaining and captures the child's complete attention. I personally like all of the strong vocabulary words that are used, which can lead to many impromptu vocab. lessons. The Wump World was a required read aloud when I taught third grade in a public school.
- Read the book Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel, which is a super cute book with colorful illustrations. Michael Recycle tells the adventures of a young superhero whose power allows him to teach people about recycling. My kids really like this book. In fact, they liked it so much that we've read other books in this series, too.
- Recite the scripture- "People are the caretakers of the earth." Genesis 1:28
- Play "Litterbug Wars." This is fun! Have your children crumble up used sheets of paper. We usually look through our office trash can for these. Then divide a large room into halves with a line of masking tape on the floor. I move our family room furniture to the side to create more space. Give Team A and Team B the same number of pieces of crumbled paper. Ten is a good number for a team of two people. Add more paper for larger teams. Have Mom and Dad get involved, too. Tell the teams when to begin. Each team throws the paper off of their side onto the opposing side as fast as they can. Stop the clock in 1-2 minutes. The team with the cleanest side (least number of paper) wins!
- Take a walk around your neighborhood picking up trash.
- Teach your child the three R's- Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle. {Click Here} to see a short video of a castle is made entirely from recycled products. This is a fantastic way to teach children how to reuse things to create new things.
- Watch this really cool way a man makes a castle from recycled materials.
- Have fun with free printables and books from education.com, such as these:
- Make Dirt Cake. {Click Here} to learn how.
- Make a "Save the Earth" art project. I love this one! Give your child a sheet of white construction paper. Wet a coffee filter and lay it on the paper. Paint the filter with water colors. The colors will bleed and go through the filter onto the paper. After painting, gently lift off the filter. The paper should now resemble the earth with white gaps for the clouds in the atmosphere as it is seen from space. This is so cool! When the paper is dry, cut out the circle and glue it to a sheet of black construction paper. Have your child use white chalk to make stars or use star stickers on the black paper. Now you can take the dry coffee filter and fold it in half with a pipe cleaner or clothespin to make an Earth Day Butterfly.
- You can also make an earth from shaving cream and paint! {Click Here} for more details. This project is completely AWESOME!
