Earth Day Blog Hop FREEBIE

Welcome to the #kinderfriends Earth Day blog Hop! Earth Day is a day that is filled with ton of fun and learning for us. We take the whole day to read, write, graph, and help our Earth.  Here are a few classroom ideas and a FREEBIE (at the end **It will only be a freebie until April 30, 2016) that you can put to use in your classroom.

First, I like to read the book It’s Earth Day by Mercer Mayer. 

It is a great story that teaches kiddos how to conserve energy, reduce, reuse, recyce, and to take care of our environment. It has wonderful words to extend vocabulary like: climate, energy, reduce, reuse, and recycle. 

We gather on the carpet to read and discuss this story and why it is so important to take care of our Earth.  While I read the kiddos are taking notes on vocabulary words, learning what can be reduced, reused, or recycled, and how to help our Earth. Here are some of the Earth Day Activities found in my FREEBIE at the end of this post:

A second fun activity is to take a “Trash Hunt” and walk around the school armed with several different types of bags for different objects we find. The students each get a plastic grocery store bag and then use permanent marker to label the bags plastic, trash, food, plastic, etc. Then they decide who is going to work together to find the most of whatever waste is written on their bag.

A third fun activity is to watch a brain pop video clip. The characters are great and kiddos can really follow the story lines. They have a great one on Reduce, reuse, and recycle. You can find clicking here.

Finally, my favorite thing of all is to make seed paper. This paper when made and used properly can be planted in pots or the ground and as the seeds grow the paper composts away leaving nothing behind but a beautiful flower or vegetable garden and no waste. You can also cut the paper into any shape and give as gifts to others to spread the word on helping our Earth. Here is how you do it:

First shred some paper into strips. (The kiddos love doing this part). The smaller the strips the better. Then soak the paper for at least an hour in a bowl of water. The longer the paper soaks the better it will turn out. (So if you can leave it overnight, it is probably the best way to go.) Then gently pull the paper out of the old water and put the soaked paper in a blender. Fill the blender half way with fresh water. Then blend the paper until you get a paper milkshake like looking material. Pour that mixture into a bowl or a pan and add the seeds. (You can add whatever kinds of seeds that you want to add. I like to use flower seeds.) Make sure that you have added enough seeds throughout the mixture and stir it well. You should be able to see the seeds clearly and all over the mixture. Next you need to use an old window screen or something similar. Pour the mixture into the screen and press it flat. You want it to be a very thin flat layer laying on top of the screen. This will allow all the access water to drain out. Let the mixture dry in the screen for a day or two.  Once it is dry you can pull it out and cut into any shape you want. Finally, you can plant the paper just under the soil in a planter, pot, or in the ground.  All you have to do now is keep the area you planted moist and watch the recycled paper grow into something beautiful!

If you are interested in trying out my Earth Day Activities, You can download the FREEBIE in my TpT store. Just click Earth Day FREEBIE!  

Have fun and thanks for helping to keep our Earth healthy! 

Now you can head over to the next stop Mrs. Byrd's Learning Tree on our blog hop!