Earth Day Activities for Kids

These 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Spelling with Licorice

A fun twist to spelling- use licorice string or pull and peel licorice to form letters to practice spelling words. Your kids will love it!

Easy to Make Family Board Game

Here is a FUN game that my sister created. When she mailed it to my husband as a birthday gift, we had no idea how exciting it would be to play. My younger kids and even teenager kept commenting on how much they loved playing it. I enjoyed the game because it's a wonderful way to learn about your family members. This game has certainly earned a place in our collection of favorite games.

Just print off the directions and game board. I laminated mine to make them extra sturdy. You can also use contact paper or print the directions and game board on card stock. We used a die and small buttons for the game pieces. The concept is so basic, yet it will bring many family memories to treasure. 

Enjoy!