While we do our best to talk to our kids about the earth on a daily or weekly basis, we like to celebrate Earth day with some fun engaging activities to bring it all together. From planting to baking, we have a whole bunch of activities you can do with your littles to celebrate the day!
Planting
Earth day means that spring is here, so it’s time to get your kids planting! Begin by planting in an individual planter that you can keep inside for your child to care for. This way they can watch closely to see how they plant is growing. A cute idea to get them even more engaged, is too put a picture of your child on the planter and create their own Chia-pets. Plant some grass seed and before they know it, their plants will be growing hair!
Earth Day Goop
There are so many things to touch and feel all around us and we are always telling the kids not to touch! Create some blue and green earth day goop and let the kids play with it all day long! Goop is simple to make and provides hours of fun! Your kids will be trying to mould it together, but it will melt when they squeeze it! You will need:
Cornstarch, cold water and food colouring…that’s it! Mix cornstarch with half the amount of water and then mix. It shouldn’t be too watery. Add food colouring to make it earth day colors and let the children explore!
Make a pact
What will you do to protect our planet? Make a pact and hold yourself and your children accountable by writing it down. Place your vow on the fridge or somewhere where you will always see it to keep it at the front of your mind. Wether it be to make sure you always throw out your garbage, or to turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth, encourage your children to make a commitment they can keep!
Bake
Baking instead of buying is good for the environment! Leave all of the packaging behind, and bake your own sweet treats at home. While you are at it, make it an earth themed treat! By using Wilton food colouring gel, you can change the color of your batter to blue and green whether you are making cupcakes, a cake or cookies.
Go litter-less!
Our children’s school has a liter-less lunch policy and it’s great! We have taken in one step further by ensure that we our snacks our litter-less when we go to programs after school, to the park or out on the weekend. We can’t get enough of the reusable snack bags from Bumkins. They come in so many cute patterns for both us and the kids. The boys are obsessed with DC Comic Collection and we love the Nixi collection for ourselves!
Scavenger hunt
Go on a scavenger hunt in your backyard or at the park. Print off a list of items for your children to look for and collect. Create a competition and see who can bring in the most number of items. Then spend some time talking about where the different items come from as well as what belongs to the earth and what doesn’t. Get rid of all that garbage and clean up your local neighbourhood!
Download the Earth day scavenger hunt here.
Read
You know how much we love to read, so Earth day is no different! Pick one of these Earth day books and read it to your child!
