Earth day! Yay! This should be one of the most exciting holidays for everyone. Earth Day is the one day of the year we dedicate to this precious planet we call ours, and it is the best opportunity to teach our youth how to treat it with respect.
If you’re looking for a few fun activities for your classroom, I have exactly that! Below you’ll find a few resources that are perfect for your classroom. But before we get to those, I wanted to share a few Earth Day ideas for your class with you!
(Oh! If you haven’t seen my list of the 10 best Earth Day Books, you can find it here!)
One of the most proactive ways to teach your classroom the benefits of recycling is to jump on a class project! You can grow a beautiful plant and record the life cycle (pssst, that activity is actually listed below! Does that still count? We’ll say yes this time. *wink wink). You can take a short trip around the school with trash bags to pick up litter, hand out some flower seeds to take home to plant, or you can join a fun program like the Crayola ColorCycle! They turn old markers into building materials; how cool!
You know, you can teach something until you’re blue in the face, but when students actively experience things, they are more likely to retain what you teach them. So, even having class outside for the day can make a huge impact. Which I highly recommend as it is so calming to be surrounded by fresh air and sunlight!
Lastly, make something beautiful! Tell students to bring in an old shoebox. Then, take them for a trip outside to gather materials like sand, a few flowers growing near the playground, and some random rocks they find. (Tip: bring in some extra materials like grass, dirt, or leaves from your own yard if your school doesn’t have an area available for this.) Then, your students can make their own garden in their shoebox! Add some recycled paper colored blue to represent a pond or river, and voila!
This Lapbook is the best Earth Day resource you can use for years! Students will be able to learn about all things recycling, reusing, and pollution, all while making goals to treat the environment better. All you need are manilla folders and a printer! This is a great lesson to add to your roster!
This measuring math center is the go-to activity for Earth Day small groups! With 5 different recording sheets, your students can practice measuring the nearest inch, half-inch, quarter-inch, centimeter, and nearest non-standard unit of measurement. A fun twist for this center is to add a pebble or flower for students to measure with!
This week-long science activity is perfect for Earth Day! It comes with paced instructions for how your class can grow their own lima bean seed. Included are posters to help follow along with the growth of the seed as well! This is a super fun activity to do that students absolutely love!
Plus, your students get to practice responsibility as they take care of the growing plant. They can then take what they’ve learned from this lesson home and grow their own seeds! In fact, this is the lesson I would send home a little packet of wildflower seeds at the end of the week for students to plant with their parents.
If you love these activities, find more here at my shop!
You can also find a list of 10 Earth Day Books here!
