Earth Day is Every Day

Earth Day is Every Day

Introduction

  • Earth Day: Special day to celebrate our planet!
  • First celebrated on April 22, 1970
  • Gaylord Nelson, former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin
  • To educate people on ways to protect and conserve

Introduce the Earth! What makes up the earth? Love the Earth!

Facts:

  1. Earth is the fifth largest planet in the Solar System.
  2. The Earth is around 4.6 billion years old.
  3. Earth is the only presently known planet in the Solar System to support life. The earliest fossil evidence for life dates back 3.5 billion years ago.
  4. 71% of Earth’s surface is covered in water.
  5. The Earth’s atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen (77%), oxygen (21%), argon (.93%), and carbon dioxide (0.03%).
  6. The surface features on Earth are extremely varied with vast oceans, tall mountains, rolling plains, canyons, swamps, and deserts.

Read

I Love the Earth by Bill Martin Jr.

Song

This Land
(tune: This Land is Your Land)
This land is your land
This land is my land,
Let’s work together
To make it better
From tall green forests to clear blue waters
This land depends on you and me

Earth Bounce

Introduce the planet earth using a globe. Then play catch with a plastic inflated globe ball. Ask the children after they have caught the globe to point to either the water or land.

Pin the Earth

Using a large piece of tag board, draw and color a large blue circle. Have the children pin the sun, moon, stars around the planet. Then pin on the land forms, trees, clouds, etc. Then show pictures of the earth taken from outer space!

Centers

Earthcakes!
Cover the work surface with newspaper. Place tubs of sand, dirt, salt, gravel on the floor. Have small pitchers of water plus aluminum tart pans and spoons nearby. Let each child concoct an earthcake by choosing some of the materials in the tubs, mixing them in a pan with water. Take the earthcakes home to dry. The children can also decorate their earthcakes with twigs, grass, soil, and rocks.

Earth Painting

Draw the earth and continents on white paper. Allow the children to finger paint with green and blue paint mixed with mud to create their own earth painting.

Earth’s Wonders

Display natural earth wonders, such as: sea shells, rocks, crystals, geodes, pine cones, seeds, twigs etc.

Earth Beads

Using model magic clay, have the children roll the clay into a large ball about the size of a quarter. An adult can press a paper clip down into the ball with part of the paper clip left exposed. Let this dry for several days. Have the children paint the ball blue, let dry, then paint on green land forms. Dry completely. Tie a long piece of blue yarn through the paper clip to make your necklace. Beware of choking hazards on small beads. Can be made into a necklace, bracelet, or key-chain. Every Day is Earth Day: A Craft Book by Kathy Ross 1995.

Potato Planters

Materials needed: Potato, potting soil, grass seed, yarn, pipe cleaners, goggle eyes.
Scoop out some of the potato before you give it to the children. Let the children make a face with the pipe cleaners, yarn, and eyes. Place the potato into a shallow dish. When they are finished add the soil and grass seed into the scooped out area. When the grass grows your potato has hair! The children can trim it or let it grow long!

Earth, Moon, and Stars

Using pictures of the earth from magazines or drawings of the earth have students glue onto black paper. Then have the children use star, sun, and moon stickers to place on black construction paper.

Trash monsters

Materials

  • 2 paper grocery bags
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Construction paper
  1. Cut a large oval hole out of the bottom of a grocery bag. Open a second grocery bag and slide the first bag inside it so that the bottom with the hole is at the top. The hole is the monster’s mouth.
  2. Using the construction paper cut eyes and triangle shaped teeth to glue around the monster’s mouth.
  3. Poke holes through the top and back side of the trash monster and string a pipe cleaner through. Twist the two ends together to make a handle. Take your trash monster for a walk and feed it trash you find along the way.

Pop can toss

Using empty aluminum soda containers the children can toss the cans into the tubs i.e. root beer into a tub with a picture of the root beer can on it.

Rainbow seeds

Label several clean sanitized egg cartons with different numbers. Then place them on tables along with containers of pom-poms (rainbow seeds). The children identify the number on the carton and then places the corresponding number of rainbow seeds in each egg cup.

Talking Earth Puppet

If our earth could talk, what do you think it would tell us?

Materials

  • Heavy paper plate or 3 thin ones glued together
  • White, brown, and black construction paper
  • Paper towel tube
  • Large red rubber band
  • Blue yarn
  • 2 paper fasteners
  • Blue paint
  • Glue
  • Scissors

Here’s what you do:

  1. Paint the bottom of the plate blue and let it dry.
  2. Cut “landforms” from the brown paper and glue them on to make the Earth. Cut eyes from the white and black paper and glue them in place.
  3. Poke the fasteners through the bottom of the plate, far enough apart so that the rubber band will hook over each fastener to form the mouth of the puppet.
  4. Tie a long piece of blue yarn to the bottom of the rubber band. Cut two slits in the top of the paper towel tube and slide the bottom of the Earth puppet into the slits of that you have a holder for the puppet.
  5. Drop the mouth string through the tube so that it hangs out the other end. To move the puppet’s mouth, pull gently on the end of the yarn.

Alternative for younger children: Draw the land forms and eyes on the paper plate with a permanent marker. Attach the fasteners, the rubber band and the string to the rubber band. Then have the children color the plate.

Let your puppet tell others how to love and care for our earth.

Song

This Old Earth
(sung to This old Man)
This old earth
Needs our help
To stay fresh and clean and green
With a pick it up; pitch it in; and throw it in the can…
This old earth needs a helping hand!

Snack

Rice Krispie Earth Treat

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup margarine
  • 40 regular marshmallows
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 6 cups rice krispies
  • Green and Blue food coloring

Melt margarine and marshmallows over medium heat in a large pot, stir in vanilla and rice krispies. Divide into two bowls. Add green food coloring to one bowl and blue food coloring to the second. Stir. Allow the children to take a scoop from the blue food coloring to the second. Stir. Allow the children to take a scoop from the blue bowl and scoop from the green bowl and mash them together in a ball (the earth).

Read

This Is Our Earth by Laura Lee Benson

Activities provided by:

E Resources Group
2550 Stagecoach Road
Webster City, Iowa 50595-7375
Toddling on the Wild Side was supported by REAP-CEP

Age:
_ 0-1
✓ 1-2
✓ 2-3
_ 3-4
_ 4-5
_ 5-6

Category: Adult-Child

Iowa Early Learning Standards:
1.2, 2.1, 2.4, 3.3, 4.2, 5.1, 6.1, 6.2, 7.3