Earth Day

INTERACTIVE PLANNING-EARTH DAY

(Open interactive planning-Earth Day) Type your activities on the document and print it. Use the document to organize and present educational activities related to the theme. 

CIRCLE TIME

Educatall team suggests an imaginary game to play with children. (Open thematic letter-Recycling) Print the letter and insert it in an envelope. Hide the envelope in an easy to find location within the daycare. During circle time, ask children to find the envelope and read portions of the letter to them each day.

Animated discussion-Earth Day

(Open picture game-Earth Day) Print and laminate the pictures in the format you prefer. Use them to spark a conversation with your group and ask children questions about Earth Day and trees. Press leaf shapes on the floor, forming a circle. Before children arrive in the morning, press pictures of Earth on the floor, drawing a path from your daycare entrance to your circle time area.

• What happens to our planet when we toss garbage on the ground?
• How can we care for our planet?
• Can you name things that we can find in nature?
• What can we observe when we go for a walk?

Let’s chat

(Open word flashcards-Earth Day) (Open giant word flashcards-Earth Day) Print and laminate the theme’s word flashcards. Have each child pick a word. They can take turns presenting their word to the group (ex. pollution). Discuss each item and ask children questions to see what they know about the theme.

AREA SETUP

Thematic poster-Earth Day

(Open thematic poster-Earth Day) Print, laminate, and display on a wall to announce the theme. We suggest hanging several recyclable items (cans, cardboard, plastic bottles, egg cartons, milk cartons, juice boxes, etc.) from your daycare ceiling using invisible thread.

Educa-theme-Earth Day

(Open educa-theme-Earth Day) Print and laminate the elements representing the theme. Use them to present the theme to your group while decorating your daycare.

Educa-decorate-Earth Day
(Open educa-decorate-Earth Day) Print, cut out, and laminate. Use the illustrations to decorate the walls of your daycare and set the mood for the theme.

Stickers-Earth Day

(Open stickers-Earth Day) Print on adhesive paper and use the illustrations to create a collection of original stickers for your group. Create a garden corner within the daycare. Fill a large container with soil and add gardening tools, plastic vegetables, and an empty watering can. Children will love "gardening". Variation: You may also include a plastic container filled with water. Children can "wash" the vegetables they pick in their garden.

Garlands
(Open garland-Earth Day) Print and hang from the ceiling using fishing wire. Cut strips of blue and green construction paper. Loop the strips together to form a chain, alternating colors. Hang from the ceiling.

PICTURE GAME

The pictures may be used as a memory game or to spark a conversation with your group. Use them to decorate your daycare or a thematic corner. (Open picture game-Earth Day) Print, laminate, and store in a "Ziploc" bag or in your thematic bin.

WRITING ACTIVITY

Writing activity

Print the activity for each child or print one copy and laminate it for use with a dry-erase marker. (Open writing activities-E for Earth)

Activity sheet-Earth Day

Activity sheets are suggested for each theme. Print and follow instructions. (Open activity sheets-Earth Day)

VARIOUS WORKSHOPS

Have fun with these wonderful workshop ideas provided by Caroline Allard.

Construction/building blocks:

• Animal bin: daytime and night-time animals.
• Blocks of all kinds to build models of the Earth as we see it.
• Add pieces of blue, green, and brown cardboard to your area.
• Recycled materials which may be used to save our planet.
• Figurines representing aliens to imagine life on other planets.

Arts & crafts:

• Blue, green, and brown paint children can use to paint the Earth as they wish. If children want to use other colors, that's fine too!
• Blue, green, and brown paper and recycled materials to make a model of the Earth.
• Scissors and white, gray, or yellow cardboard to cut out clouds, a sun, a moon, and stars.
• Make a telescope using empty paper towel rolls.
• Use contact paper, sparkles, confetti, and colourful paper to make suncatchers or stained glass windows.
• Magazines...children can cut pictures and illustrations and use them to make a mural of activities we enjoy daily. These activities can be celebrated on Earth Day too!
• A circle and pre-cut numbers can be used to make a clock.
• Stars, stars, and more stars!
• Stars and a moon to make a mobile. For a daytime version, use a sun and clouds.
• Different sizes of circles which can be cut out and used to represent our solar system.

Drawing:

• Coloring pages which represent stars, outdoor daytime and night-time activities.
• Display a map of the world and ask children to draw a country of their own. Discuss. What would the inhabitants be called? What would they look like?
• Suggest children draw their favourite activities.
• Star stencils.

Role play:

• Careers and professions fit perfectly into this theme. There are people at work all around the world.
• Blankets which may be used to create cabins or huts like the homes we find in other parts of the world.
• Display posters showing the types of homes we can see in various countries.
• Transform a large cardboard box to look like a rocket. Imagine a disguise. Imagine how fascinating it would be to look down at the Earth from space.
• Gardener's bin. Provide gloves, an apron, gardening tools, etc.

Manipulation:

• Memory game with educatall.com's picture game or a store-bought version related to the theme.
• Puzzles related to the theme.
• Blue, green, and brown modeling dough. Let children mix the colors together. Provide star or circle cookie cutters.
• Association game (memory game) using smiley faces (which look like suns) showing various emotions.
• Draw the Earth on a large piece of cardboard and cut it into several pieces to make your own giant puzzle.
• A Lite-Brite game, the lights look like shining stars.
• A globe.
• A map of the world.
• Beads (star-shaped and round) to make necklaces.

Pre-reading:

• Books about weather, outer space (sun, moon), etc.
• Reference books such as an atlas.
• Books about various countries.
• Add tiny lights and tulle to your reading area to create a special hideout.
• Pictures of the Earth seen from above.
• Book and CD sets children can enjoy with earphones.

Pre-writing:

• Dot to dot activities involving a sun, a moon, the Earth.
• Games with educatall.com's word flashcards.
• Activity sheets related to the theme.

Motor skills:

• An obstacle course involving objects related to the Earth which must be collected throughout.
• Parachute games with tiny suns, clouds, moons, and stars cut out of cardboard to send flying through the air.
• Parachute games with scraps of paper or crumpled up pieces of recycled paper.
• Various sizes of balls which can represent the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon. They can be rolled, thrown, or bounced.
• Spin a ball on your finger, like the Earth which spins on its axis.

Sensory bins:

• A container filled with shiny marbles...they look like stars.
• A container filled with soil.
• A large ball of modeling dough which can be manipulated.

Kitchen:

• Prepare recipes from all around the world.

Science:

• Which colors must we combine to make green? Brown?
• Pictures of the Earth which can be observed using magnifying glasses.
• A globe which children can spin and use to locate the country they live in.
• If you have the chance, children will love looking through a real telescope!

LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES

Word flashcards-Earth Day
The flashcards may be used to spark a conversation with your group, in your reading and writing area, or to identify your thematic bins. (Open word flashcards-Earth Day) humans, planet, Earth, ocean, continent, town, country, forest, oxygen, recycling, pollution, sun

Picture clue story
(Open picture clue story-Earth Day) Print. Sit in a circle with your group. Begin reading the story. Pause for each picture clue. Point to the clue and have children guess the missing word.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND MOTOR SKILLS

Modeling dough activity placemats-Earth Day

(Open modeling dough activity placemats-Earth Day) Print and laminate. Let children pick a placemat and provide modeling dough. Encourage them to use the dough to fill or reproduce the shapes that are on their placemat.

Electric vehicles

To begin, create your very own charging station for electric vehicles. Use your imagination and items that you have on hand, for example building blocks. Next, encourage children to drive your toy cars and toy trucks around your daycare (or yard), pretending they are electric vehicles. Obviously, they will have to stop to visit your charging station often to charge their vehicle’s battery. Remind children that electric vehicles are silent. For this reason, this physical activity will be very quiet. For some, this can represent quite the challenge, especially since children are used to making motor sounds whenever they play with vehicles.

The Earth is round

Give each child a small quantity of blue modeling dough as well as a small quantity of green modeling dough. Show them how they can press a piece of both colors together to form a round ball. Encourage them to slowly add a little more blue modeling dough and then a little more green modeling dough. When they are satisfied, admire each child’s representation of Earth. Explain how on a globe and on their ball, the blue color represents water whereas the green portions represent land. At the end of the activity, invite children to flatten their ball of dough to create a disc. Use a drinking straw to make a hole at the top of each child’s disc. Let dry. Thread a green ribbon through the hole at the top of each child’s disc and knot both ends. Hang children’s work.

Lost in space

Photocopy pictures of different planets. Laminate them. Press the pictures on your daycare walls. Tell your group that you are lost in space. Invite them to help you find Earth. Pretend that you are rockets and fly from one planet to the next until you reach Earth.

Illustrated Earth Day

Find several pictures and illustrations of Earth and press them on items throughout your daycare. You can stick them on walls, cupboards, and even the floor. Children will enjoy discovering them throughout the day.  

Earth Day pyramid

(Open stickers-Earth Day) Print and use stickers to create games. Collect several empty metal cans (various sizes). Decorate them with Earth Day stickers and stack them on a table to form a pyramid. Children must toss a frisbee towards the pyramid. The goal is to make all the cans fall down. You can choose to give each child three tries.

Playing cards-Earth Day

(Open playing cards-Earth Day) Print and laminate several playing cards and hide them throughout your daycare or yard. Divide your group into 2 teams. When you give the signal, children race to collect as many cards as possible for a predetermined period of time, for example 3 minutes.

Fine motor skills-Earth Day

(Open models-Earth Day) Print for each child. Have children tear and crumple pieces of blue and green tissue paper. Next, ask them to fill a shape with white glue and press the crumpled pieces of tissue paper in the glue. Use children’s artwork to decorate your daycare. 

Our planet is round

Give each child an inflated balloon. Encourage them to draw on their balloon. Show them how they can spin their balloon, just like Earth spins on its axis.

Brown paper bags

Set brown paper bags on your daycare floor to create an obstacle course. Encourage children to hop from one bag to the next. When they reach the end of the course, they must toss a ball in a bag.

Lost in space
Photocopy pictures of planets and laminate them. Display the pictures on the walls of your daycare. Inform children that you are all lost in space. Tell them that, together, you must find the Earth. Move around like rockets, from one picture to the next, until you find the Earth.

Jump on the Earth
(Open model-Earth) Print. Laminate and secure the illustrations on the floor. Play music. When the music stops, children must quickly sit on an illustration (variation of musical chairs).

Visiting Earth
Create an obstacle course using hula hoops, balls, cardboard boxes, etc. Children pretend they are aliens visiting

Earth for the first time.

From one continent to another
Deposit seven hula hoops on the floor (or outline seven circles using a rope). Children stand around the circles which represent continents. They take turns jumping from one continent to another (circles) to the sound of music. When the music stops, if a child is inside one of the circles, he must stay there. The game continues until all the children are on the same continent.

Rain dance
Provide music and encourage children to dance. Discuss traditional rain dancing.

The Earth is round
Give each child an inflated balloon. Let children draw on their balloon. Encourage them to try to spin it, just like the Earth spins on its axis.

We spin, like the Earth
Deposit exercise mats on the floor. Let children perform somersaults...

The Earth spins
Divide your group into teams of three children. One child is the Earth, another child is the Moon, and the third child is the Sun. The children who are playing the role of the Sun do not move. Explain how the Earth is constantly moving, that it spins on its axis and around the sun. Children who are playing the role of the Earth must therefore spin around while spinning around the child playing the role of the Sun in their team. The child playing the role of the Moon must also spin around while spinning around the child playing the role of the Earth. Variation for younger children: Children work in groups of two. Simply have the child playing the role of the Earth spin around the child playing the role of the Sun.

I am cutting circles-The Earth is round

(Open I am learning to cut circles) Print for each child. Throughout the theme, children can practice cutting circles which, like the Earth, are round. Variation: Children could trace the circles before cutting them out.

OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

I recycle to protect the Earth
Provide several different plastic containers and empty cardboard boxes. Children will love using them to build a castle out of recycled material. Your local grocer will surely be glad to give you cardboard boxes. Let children play with the boxes as they wish. They can have fun for hours building tunnels, houses, towers, and structures of all kinds.

Wet walk
Go for a walk in the rain. Touch the rain. Is it hot or cold? Notice the color of the sky and the shapes of the clouds. Fill buckets with rainwater. Observe the water. Jump in puddles and search for worms. When you return, explain the importance of rain and how, without rain, the Earth would suffer.

ACTIVITIES INVOLVING PARENTS

I protect the environment
Provide a large piece of green cardboard. With their parents, children search in magazines and catalogues for pictures of objects, activities, or actions which protect the environment. During circle time, children present the pictures they found and glue them on the green cardboard. Display near the daycare entrance.

COGNITIVE ACTIVITIES

Reproduction Earth Day patterns

(Open reproducing patterns-Earth Day) Print, laminate, and cut out the cards. Fill a bowl with blue plastic gems and another bowl with green plastic gems. Fill a third bowl with brown gems or pebbles. Children pick a card, observe the illustrated pattern, and reproduce it using the gems and pebbles. Of course, they can continue the pattern well beyond what is shown on their card for an added challenge.

Stacked recycling bins

(Open stacked recycling bins) Print, laminate, and cut out the cards. Children pick a card and stack colorful building blocks that will represent recycling bins for the duration of this activity. They must respect the colors and order shown on their card. When they are done, children hand you their card. Encourage them to name the colors of their stacked recycling bins, starting at the bottom. Verify their work by comparing with what is shown on their card.

Complete the planet

(Open complete the planet) Print the document in color for each child. Give each child a small bowl containing blue poster paint and a small bowl containing green poster paint. Each child will also need a cotton swab. Have children dip their cotton swab in the blue paint and stamp it inside all the empty circles in the blue portion of the planet to represent water. Once this step is done, have them dip the opposite end of their cotton swab in green paint to fill all the empty circles in the green portion of the planet to represent continents. This is a fantastic fine motor exercise!

Punchable Earth Day

(Open punchable Earth Day) Print a different page for each child. Children must cut the strips containing illustrations linked to the theme. Print, laminate, and cut out the cards. Mix them up and set them face down on the table. Children take turns picking a card. If they see the corresponding item on their strips of paper, they use a hole-punch to punch a hole in each one. The first child who has punched all his items wins.

Tiny trees for planting

Fill a shallow bin with dried black beans. Add several brown pipe cleaners that you have cut in half as well as several green-colored soda bottle or applesauce pouch caps. Invite children to try to insert the pipe cleaner pieces vertically amongst the beans and then delicately set a green cap on each one to represent miniature trees. Children can take turns seeing how many trees they can “plant” in, for example, 3 minutes.

Recycled constructions-Earth Day

(Open recycled constructions-Earth Day) Print, laminate, and cut out the cards. Gather several empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls, scraps of newspaper and cardboard, soda bottle caps, cardboard boxes, and a variety of recycled materials. Pick a card and invite children to work together to represent what is shown on the card, as they imagine it.

Educ-differences-Earth Day

(Open educ-differences-Earth Day) Print and laminate for durable, eco-freindly use. Children find and circle the number of differences indicated on the sheet using a dry-erase marker.

Educ-math-Earth Day
(Open educ-math-Earth Day) Print and laminate for durable, eco-freindly use. Children must count the items in each rectangle and circle the corresponding number.

Educ-same and different-Earth Day
(Open educ-same and different-Earth Day) Print and laminate for durable, eco-friendly use. Children must circle the illustration that is different in each row.

Association game-Earth Day

(Open association game-Earth Day) Print the various pieces. Children associate each item to the correct bin.

Hunt and seek-Earth

(Open hunt and seek-Earth Day) Print and laminate. Children pick illustrations and search for the objects in the larger picture.

Find the Earth
(Open game-Find the Earth) Print, laminate, and cut out. Hide the moon, sun, and star illustrations throughout the daycare (use adhesive putty to stick them on the walls). Hide only one Earth illustration. When you give them the signal, children must walk around the daycare and give you the illustrations they collect. The object of the game is to find the Earth. The child who finds it gets to help you hide the illustrations for the following round.

Let's save the planet
(Open game-Save the planet) Print the cards and laminate them. Place the illustrations face down on the floor. Children take turns turning a card over. They must name the action which is illustrated on the card and state whether or not the action will save the planet or not. If they provide the correct answer, they may keep the card. The game ends when all the cards have been used. Children count the cards they collected.

I am learning to recycle
(Open I recycle well) Print. Prepare four boxes and glue one card per box to represent the recycling categories: plastic, glass, metal, and paper. Sit in a circle. Deposit various objects in the center of the circle (plastic bottles, shoeboxes, glass bottles, metal cans, etc.) Pass each object around the circle. Ask children to sort the objects, placing them in the correct recycling bin.

The continents
(Open activity sheets-The continents) Print an activity sheet for each child. Have them color the continents, associating the correct colors.

The globe
Arrange a special table which includes a globe and picture books about different countries. Display a map of the world nearby, at children's eye level. Encourage children to locate the countries shown in the books on the globe and on the map.

MORAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

Playing in dirt

Create a garden area in your daycare. Fill a bin with soil and add gardening tools, plastic vegetables, and an empty watering can (to avoid spills). Encourage children to play in the dirt and pretend to plant and pick vegetables.

Variation: Add a plastic container filled with water so that children can “wash” the vegetables they pick.

The garbage squad

Invite parents to join you for a walk in your daycare’s neighborhood. Use this activity to raise children’s awareness about the garbage that can be seen everywhere. Purchase plastic gloves for everyone and collect the garbage you see during your walk in a large bag. Ask children to show you the garbage they find before picking it up for safety. Send a piece of paper home with each child and ask them to draw what they saw during your outing. Use their drawings to reinforce their awareness of the importance of putting garbage in the appropriate bins.

A classic-To save my planet
Children sit in a circle. The first child says, "To save my planet, I must...", and names an environmentally friendly action. The next child must repeat the action the first child said and add one of his own, and so on.

Falling rain
Deposit mattresses and blankets near a window on a rainy day. Invite children to relax while watching the rain fall, listening to its pitter patter.

EARLY SCIENCE

Miniature garden
Use an aluminum pie plate per child. Help children fill their pie plate with soil using a tablespoon. Next, children plant small branches, rocks, plants, and flowers they collected while you were outside. Let children water their miniature garden.

The importance of water
Use dried fruits and vegetables (like the ones used to make soup). Add them to a transparent container filled with water. Children will experiment with dehydration and rehydration. Set apple or orange slices out to dry. Children may eat them for their afternoon snack. Water plants with your group. Explain the importance of water. End the activity by offering them a tall glass of water to drink.

CULINARY ACTIVITIES

Glacier
Purchase assorted balloons. Fill them with water and place them in the freezer. Once the water is frozen, peel the balloon off, keeping only the frozen balls of ice. Deposit the ice in a small inflatable pool or in a large container. Let children manipulate it. Watch the glaciers transform as they melt.

ARTS & CRAFTS

Mrs. Earth
(Open craft-Mrs. Earth) Print. Have children color and cut out the pieces. Use the planet for Mrs. Earth's head and body. Fold strips of paper accordion-style for the arms and legs. Glue the medium-sized flowers to the ends of the strips to represent the hands and feet.

Crumpled planet
(Open craft-Earth) Print for each child. Glue on cardboard. Fill the Earth's sections with glue. Crumple tiny balls of green and blue tissue paper and use them to complete the Earth.

Earth stained glass window
Trace a circle the size of a plate and cut out the center. Glue a piece of contact paper to one side of the Earth. Turn it over and add pieces of Earth-coloured cellophane paper to the sticky side. Display in a window.

Earth clock
(Open clock-Earth) Print and cut out the pieces. Cut the center out of a paper plate. Ask children to glue the picture of the Earth in the bottom of the plate. Next, have them add the numbers around the contour of the plate, making sure to place 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom. Make a small hole in the center of the plate. Use a fastener to attach the clock's hands in the center.

Newspaper art

Give each child a large piece of white cardboard. Set newspaper in the center of your arts & crafts table. Let children tear the newspaper into pieces that they can then glue as they see fit on their piece of cardboard. Encourage them to overlap the newspaper pieces. Next, provide water-based paint and invite children to paint over the newspaper. Let dry and display their artwork to highlight your theme.

Tiny recycled trees

For this activity, you will need brown corrugated cardboard as well as several green soda bottle (or applesauce pouch) caps. Have children cut several rectrangles out of the cardboard (one bigger one that will represent a tree trunk and many smaller ones to represent branches). They glue the rectangles on a piece of blue construction paper to create a tree. To complete their tree, they can glue green caps on the branches to represent leaves.  

Earth stamping

For each child, inflate a balloon so that it is approximately 1/3 inflated. Give each child a piece of white cardboard. Set 2 pie plates on the table along with 2 containers, one filled with blue poster paint and one filled with green poster paint. Children press the bottom of their balloon in both paint colors before pressing it on their piece of cardboard several times to stamp what will look like Earth. Let dry. Once the paint is completely dry, have children cut out the planets, punch a hole at the top of each one, and thread them on a pretty ribbon to create an Earth Day garland.

My name-Earth Day

Invite each child to cut a circle out of a sheet of green Fun Foam and a circle out of a sheet of blue Fun Foam. Both circles must be the same size. Have children cut 3 irregular shapes out of their green circle. They can glue these “continents” on their blue circle. Here, the blue circle shall represent water. Provide tiny Fun Foam hearts, one for each letter in their name. Children write one letter that is in their name on each heart (with your help if necessary) and press them on their planet Earth.

COLORING PAGES

Creative coloring-Earth
(Open creative coloring-Earth Day) Print for each child. Invite children to complete the picture by drawing where their house is located on the globe.

Coloring pages
(Open coloring pages theme-Earth Day) Print for each child.

SONGS & RHYMES

Planet Earth
by: Patricia Morrison
sung to: Twinkle, twinkle little star

Pretty, pretty planet Earth
We will take good care of you
Reduce waste and recycle
Keep land green and oceans blue
Pretty, pretty planet Earth
We will take good care of you

Have fun!

The Educatall team