Earth Day Fun

Earth Day originated on April 22, 1970 as a demonstration led by Gaylord Nelson with a call to action for Americans to begin paying attention to the environment.  People around the world continue to celebrate Earth Day every year on April 22 and I'm sure that you'll be leading your students or children in some activities to help them become more environmentally aware.

As I was planning Earth Day activities for us to do in homeschool, I first reflected on why I choose to celebrate Earth Day with my kiddos.  The main reason goes back to the creation of this earth.  God created this earth as our temporary home and I want to be a good steward and care for it as best as I can.

Plus these two guys (and their little sis) LOVE to be outside!  I want to pass on to them a desire to appreciate the beauty of nature and to instill in them habits that will help them best care for our earth. I plan to build environmental awareness in developmentally appropriate ways.

During the planning process, I came across Earth Day Network.  This website shares that this year's focus for Earth Day is Environmental and Climate Literacy.  There is a free toolkit that you can download that includes integrated and web-based activities to help you teach your students about climate change.  If you click the logo below, it will take you to the toolkit.

In addition to some of the activities from the Earth Day Network Toolkit, we'll do plenty of reading about topics like the Three R's:  Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse. A great nonfiction book to read to your kids is called Let's Find Out About Recycling by Dr. Mike Goldsmith.  In addition to great content, there are lots of text features that you can use to reinforce expository text structure.

Another thing we'll do, which is super simple, but my kids will love is to plant some flowers and some veggies.  Planting flowers will give us opportunities to talk about the benefits of plants to our environment and about how they remove pollutants from the air.  We are also going to plant a few vegetables in container gardens.  They love caring for the vegetables, watching them grow, and enjoying the harvest when they time comes.

I've got a few more projects planned for Earth Day that I'll share with you later but I want to leave you with a freebie that you can use with your own students.  Yay!!   My We Heart Earth Day Freebies pack includes a short reading selection (Lexile 700) that focuses on the 3 R's.  There is an accompanying worksheet that has students identify the definitions of three vocabulary words and two comprehension questions to check for understanding.  This would be a great morning work activity or just a supplement to any of your Earth Day learning.  In addition to the comprehension selection, there is a poster that you can print for your kiddos to complete where they can illustrate and write about ways they plan to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

If you'd like to have this freebie, just click on the picture below to grab it from my TPT store.

How are you planning to celebrate Earth Day?  What resources will you use with your kiddos?  I'd love to hear from you!