What better way is there to get your little ones thinking about our planet than by filling a week with activities about it. We have put together some practical ideas to help you teach your toddlers about looking after the environment.
Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment and is held on April 22 each year. It is similar to World Environment Day. Earth Day falls during spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.
What can you do to celebrate Earth Day with your children?
- Plant trees. Planting trees helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cleans pollution, secures soil in place to prevent erosion, and provides homes for a lot of biodiversity. If trees are not an option, pot some flowers or plant some vegetables. For those of you without a garden, window boxes and planters are a good way to get your children working in the soil.
- Make nature crafts at school or home. Get together with your family and build a birdhouse or make a bird feeder to encourage the local bird population. Use objects that would’ve otherwise been thrown away to create beautiful works of art…(look at the links below for some fun craft ideas)
- Learn more about the environment. Earth Day is a good time to make a commitment to learning more about the environment and how you can help to protect it. Borrow some library books and read up on an issue such as pollution, endangered species, water shortages, recycling, and climate change. Or, learn about a region you’ve never considered before, like the Arctic, the deserts, or the rainforests. Think about the issues that concern you the most and if you haven’t done so already, join a local group that undertakes activities to help protect the environment in your area.
- Reduce, reuse and recycle .
- Buy as little as possible and avoid items that come in lots of packaging.
- Support local growers and producers of food and products – these don’t have to travel as far and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Take your drink container with you, and don’t use any disposable plates or cutlery.
- Recycle all the things you do use for the day or find other uses for things that you no longer use.
- Carry a cloth bag for carrying things in and recycle your plastic bags.
- Get children to recycle their old toys and games. By giving their old toys and games to younger children who could make use of them, older children learn two lessons: One is about giving to others and the second is about reusing and recycling instead of throwing things away. Adults can also do this with clothes, electrical items, books and more. Learn about product exchange communities like Freecycle and other alternatives.
- Do a litter clear up. Many groups use the weekend of Earth Day to clear roadways, highways and neighbourhood streets of litter that has accumulated since the last clean-up day. Many companies donate gloves and bags for clean-up groups and villages organize bag pick ups. Once the group has collected the rubbish and placed the recycled bags along the road, get the village public works department to pick the bags up. It’s a wonderful community project. Great for scout troops, rotary clubs and the like.
- Sing or listen to “Earth” songs. There are many Earth Day song lyrics available on the Internet. Many follow well-known tunes. These make a fantastic classroom activity and help younger children to become interested in environmental topics. For listening, even iTunes has songs about the Earth for downloading: try searching for words such as “planet”, “Earth”, “endangered”, “pollution” etc. (see below for some useful links)
- Hold an Earth Day fair. Maybe your school, your street, your local neighbourhood is interested in getting together to have an environmental fair. Things to have at the fair include demonstrations of environmentally-friendly products, children’s artwork, healthy/locally grown foods to eat, animal care demonstrations (including wildlife rescue), games for the children made of recycled products, musicians and actors performing environmental music and skits, stalls which are recycling unwanted treasures and books, local environmental organisations presenting their issues and wares. Money raised can go towards a local environmental restoration project or to an environmental group agreed upon by all the participants running the fair.
- Teach others about the environment. Teachers, professionals, students, in fact anyone who cares about the environment and is willing to teach others, can all provide environmental lessons for others. Many schools already celebrate Earth Day in the classrooms with activities but there are many other ways you can teach about the environment. For example, give a speech at your local library on how to compost with worms; take a group of children down to the recycling center to show them how things are recycled; recite nature poems in the park; offer to teach your office colleagues how to make environmentally-friendly choices at work during one lunch hour. Everyone has environmental knowledge they can share with others.
- Wear green and/or brown. Dress in environmental colours for the day; think “tree”!
- Cook a special Earth Day meal. Plan a menu that uses locally produced foods, is healthy and has minimal impact on the environment. Favour vegetable and bean products, as these use less resources to grow than mass-farmed meat. If you still would like meat, look for locally produced, organic meat. Try and have organic food completely. Decorate the table with recycled decorations made by you and your friends. You could make it even more earth friendly by eating raw food…
- Ride your bike. Use your bicycle or other forms of human powered transportation to commute to work or school and to run errands.
Remember: Every day is Earth Day. Anything to help our environment is a perfect thing to do on Earth Day and every day. Don’t restrict yourself to just one day a year; learn about how you can make a difference to environmental protection all the time. And put it into practice – every day!
Songs, poems and other activites to try:
*Rain Forests – A poem to celebrate Earth Day -Download Now
*Recycle – Two songs for Earth Day – Download Now
*The Earth and the Rainbow – Gifts from God – a Song & Poem – Download Now
*Earth Day Wordsearch – easier – Download Now
*Earth Day Wordsearch – advanced – Download Now
*Earth Day Hidden Message Puzzle – Download Now
Lesson plans and activities to do with children: http://www.healthyplanet.org/earthday.aspx
Thanks to Wikipaedia for factual information.
I am a preschool and primary school teacher and mum to 3 children. I have been involved in education since 1997 and have trained in a variety of educational specialist areas. It is with this expertise that I write articles to help parents and educators provide quality learning experiences for the children in their care.
