Earth Day
If the weather permits I am urging you to go outside and enjoy this beautiful world today. There are so many things we rush past or fail to notice and if we show down, and look at it through our kid’s eyes, we’ll learn something and so will they. Today I want to show my son why we want and need to save our environment by appreciating what we have.
Nature Detectives
It’s amazing when you introduce a simple tool like a magnifying glass how outside time changes.
We looked at bugs.
We looked at weeds
We looked at flowers
If you want you can make a small notebook for your child to record or draw what they saw on their nature walk. I chose to skip that and spend the time talking about it with my son over a picnic lunch. Each time he told me what he found he’d jump up to show me exactly where in our backyard he found it.
Happy Earth Day
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We have been talking a lot about planet earth and music at our house. I decided to mix the two together to celebrate the earth with some home spun music. I used ribbon to secure the two plates together but if I could have found my stapler, I would have used it. Stapling is by far the best way in my opinion to keep the plates together.
- Gather your materials. You will need 2 paper plates,something to make some sound ( bigger is better- pasta, O cereal) some green crayons, blue paint, a large brush or sponge( we used this sponge because my son saw it and he insisted, a regular sponge would work great), a stapler or a hole punch and ribbon.
- Give your child the plates and have them draw the land of the earth with green crayons. They need to press hard for the wax to be think enough for the paint to be repelled. After I showed my son how to press hard and make the green dark he was good to go. Do both plates.
- Cover the plates with the blue paint.
The paint should be repelled from the wax, if the paint is covering it, just blot it with a paper towel. Do the 2nd plate, let dry.
- If you are doing the ribbons for securing the plates, punch the holes in both plates at the same time, make sure the holes are close enough together that the stuff inside doesn’t fly out.
- Put the pasta or cereal Os inside ( I’m using cereal Os because they were left out after an unfinished snack yesterday and I thought that is a perfect example of not wasting! ).
- Tie the plates together with the ribbons. Or if you are stapling, now is the time!
- Make some music and celebrate our wonderful world!
Books!
“It’s Earth Day” by Mercer Mayer . In this book in the Little Critter series, we follow along as Little Critter tries to make a climate change machine to reverse the effects of global warming. Along the way other green choices are explained like taking the school bus instead of each child being driven in their own cars, not letter water run, and the three Rs.
“BIG EARTH, Little Me “ by Thom Wiley is a cute introduction into an environmental theme for toddlers. The book is a lift the flap format and the pages are extra sturdy for fumbly toddler fingers. I love the illustrations by Kate Endle they bring the super simple text to life, and get across the point that even little kids can help the earth.
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So this was not quite what I imagined in my perfectly optimistic head, but my son liked it, after doing it we were reading a book that had trees in it and he said “Look mama, T for Tree!” I wanted to make it from mostly recycled materials, to stick with the Earth Day theme we will be doing all week. Below I have linked a reader submitted spring tree craft that would be a great add on to this activity!
- Gather your materials. You will need a cardboard egg carton, green and brown paint, glue, scissors, a marker and a large piece of construction paper.
- Start by drawing a large T on your paper.
- Cut a long piece of the cardboard off the top of the egg carton for the trunk.
- Paint the trunk brown
- Paint the bottom of the egg carton green, for older kids I would cut them before painting, but little guys need to have a larger object to paint.
- Let the paint dry.
- When the paint is dry enough to handle cut the egg carton into “Leaves” aka smaller pieces.
- grab the glue and add glue to the bottom of the T
- Add the painted trunk
- Add glue to the top
- Add the egg carton leaves.
- Let dry.
“Up , Up, Down” by Robert Munsch is a cute and funny story about a little girl who climbs and climbs and falls and falls! She decides to climb to the very top of the tree. This time she doesn’t fall and doesn’t come down until it’s time to lecture her parents withe their own words. Kids love this book, it’s silly , it’s about climbing and has giant band aids in it, what kid wouldn’t love it?
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Isn’t this beautiful?
Bring a little of the outdoors in , and reuse bubble wrap with this adorable spring bud craft !
Pop over to The Entertaining House for the full how to.
We make art with recycled things all the time here at No Time For Flash Cards, I’d like to say it’s all out of concern for the environment but often it’s just because it’s what is available, we eat an insane amount of cereal and need to do something with all the boxes! Here are some of the crafts we have done using recycled materials. Click on the craft title to link to the original post with full how to instructions.
