Earth Day Lesson Plan For Preschool

Earth Day is almost here – and this post may be too late for you for this year, so bookmark it for next because this Earth Day lesson plan for preschool was a huge hit with my students. What I love about this Earth Day lesson plan is that the book makes taking care of the Earth and environment relatable to 5-year-olds. So many of the Earth Day books say things like “Don’t pollute.” but don’t explain what that means or why we shouldn’t be doing that. Small children have very little control over anything, but this lesson works to empower them while tapping into their creativity too. Get the step-by-step directions and the free earth day printables below.

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Earth Day Book For Preschool ( and perfect for this lesson)

Rocket Says Clean Up by Nathan Byron is a rad book. It captures children’s attention and immediately engages them in this fun and spunky main character Rocket. Rocket is visiting her grandparents on the beach in Jamaica and is dismayed by the harm that plastics are creating for the animals there. She is motivated to make a change and decides to organize a beach cleanup. This part of the story where everyone chips in is particularly empowering, and I always take time to point it out to my students. “Would Rocket have been able to clean up the whole beach by herself? No. But because everyone pitched in and did a little work, it got done! All our little changes to help the Earth matter!” The story lends itself to both the following activities perfectly because not only does Rockey get the beach cleaned up, the garbage left over gets turned into something beautiful, which is part of our lesson too!

Need more Earth Day books? Check out our long list here!

The Lesson – Earth Day Printables for Preschool

After reading the book but before you get creative, work on a little sorting and problem-solving. Use these printables for a sorting activity where students need to decide if the item or animal belongs in the ocean or on the beach, in the recycle bin, or in the garbage. This will be different for all of us as different items can or can’t be recycled depending on your community.

Print out these printables, cut, and add magnets or laminate.

Show your students each item and ask where they belong. If your students need to wiggle after listening to the book, hand the items out and ask them to come up and put them where they need to go. This can make waiting a little more palatable. With my PreK students, I keep the items with me and usually get kinda silly. ” Turtles get recycled, right?” This gets the giggles going but they are still learning just the same, if not better!

The Earth Day Art Activity for Preschool

Now it’s time for the creative part of this Earth Day lesson plan for preschool. After sorting, it’s time to remind the students how the garbage Rocket and her community collected got turned into something pretty and new! It’s your students’ turn to turn garbage and recyclables into something new!

Gather your materials. For this, I used paper towel rolls, magazine pages, plastic drink lids, plastic container lids, cardstock, and glue. I also reminded my students they had access to all the tools in our art area ( crayons, more scrap paper, scissors, and markers).

I cut the paper towel rolls into smaller rings and the magazine pages into circles and long, thin rectangles.

Time to create – the only limit I put on my students was that whatever they made had to be from nature. So plants, animals, and the Earth itself – something that helped us celebrate Earth Day!