Earth Day

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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.

AREA SETUP

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

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

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

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.

Cardinal points

(Open Cardinal points wheel) Print, cut out, and laminate. Attach the arrow using a fastener. Show children the different cardinal points (North, South, East, West). Go for a walk and use a compass to find the different cardinal points. Children associate the arrow on the wheel to the matching cardinal point.

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

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

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.

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

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