Earth Day: Teacing Children to Love the Earth

 

Earth Day is just around the corner.  Spring is my favorite time of the year! I love everything outdoors, and after a long, cold winter it is great to get outside and enjoy our Earth. On many days, I find myself looking for excuses to get my kids outdoors, and Earth Day is a perfect excuse.  We have  full day of Earth Day fun! Here are some of the things that we have done in the past and will be doing this year with Megan's kids!

Planting flowers is an easy fit! We give our kids two different choices of seeds to plant. Once the seeds are planted the kids work in groups  to create a graph to show what we planted.

 

We also make pinecone bird feeders. After making the feeders, they cut and sequence the pictures to create a flow map. Using the flow map, the children write a "how to" piece. (Love that face!)

We created story problems for worms!

Using blue and green markers, the children color a coffee filter. Then, we spray it with a water bottle.  After drying the kids glue it down with their handprints. They write their Earth Day pledge and draw a self portrait.

We use different food items to represent various items that are easily composted. (It is like a trail mix.) I put each item in a paper bag. Then, using a food scoop, the children scoop a little from each bag to place in their individual paper bags. We carry this along when we take our Earth Day walk in the afternoon.  The kids write their recipe.

The kids use patterns to create flowers for their flower part books. Then, on the inside they sequence the pictures for "How to Grow a Flower". They use the cut apart sentences to match each picture.

We used this Earth Day song to  the tune of "Here we go Round the Mulberry Bush", to teach what plants need. 

We created paper towel roll trees to store our Earth Day poems.

We used recycled materials to measure our Carbon Footprints.

We did a spin energy graph and a transportation survey graph. All of these activities are from our Earth Day unit. We recently updated the unit to include new layouts and clip art. We also added patterns for the flower pots and sequencing pictures for the bird feeder. If you already have this unit, you can get the updated version in your "My Purchases" section on tpt.

This year we are adding something new...a nonfiction book we wrote about Earth Day. This book follows the same format as our Guided Reading Monthly units. After doing the research and finding the photographs we write the text at 3 different levels. the goal is to be able to provide them with a text they can read and to create a text that I can use to teach the information.

We also provide pages for word work, phonemic practice (th at the beginning or end of the word), vocabulary (adding re- to words), nonfiction feature practice (index), and a writing activity (tree map and writing paper).

Happy Earth Day Everyone!