It’s April and that means we are almost at the end of the school year teachers!! It’s so close yet so far away, but I promise you I can see. Just a few more Mondays and we’ll get to say hi to summer!
With that being said, let’s get down to biz-ness!
Want to know what I did in my classroom for Earth Day? Well, just keep reading and you’ll find out. Don’t forget to pin ideas you like for next year!
I like to start off teaching Earth Day by reading a few read aloud books to activate my students’ prior knowledge and build their curiosity. I read one book a day and we have a class discussion about it and what we learn from the book to help us save the earth. Below are kid friendly books I read to my students.
Knowing me, I love to incorporate music and technology into all my lessons so I resorted to my quickest resource…..YouTube. I put on two Earth Day videos from Harry Kindergarten Music which my students enjoyed so much they sung it all day, every day for 2 weeks. I’m not kidding you. It almost drove me nuts, but how could I be mad when they’re 4-5 years old babies. This first video teaches students about Going Green and the 3 R’s (Recycle, Reuse, Reduce).
This second video is a very fun song that teaches students to follow directions and learn ways to save the earth. I have to admit; I sometimes catch myself singing to this song.
After dancing, singing, and learning ways to save the earth we created a “We Pledge to Take Care of the Earth” anchor chart. I asked students to think-pair-share of ways we could take care of the Earth, then wrote them down on the chart paper. Afterwards, we wrote our names on each hand to show everyone our promises. We hung it on the door so everyone could see it when they entered the classroom.
An art and craft + writing activity we did in the classroom was from Grade School Giggles. I have transitional kindergarten students so I modified the activity to fit their needs. They did an ah-mazing job copying their sentence down and coloring the earth green and blue. This was pretty much a self-guided activity for my students beside asking them to share their sentence, then writing it down on their personal whiteboard for them to copy. You can click on the picture to download the freebie from Grade School Giggles TpT Store.
Another art and craft + writing activity my students did was write a letter to the Earth. My students made the earth using paper plates and self-teared blue and green construction papers.
I wanted my TK students to start writing because they’ve been doing a lot of guided writing and copying so we did a shared writing letter to the Earth. We worked on writing two sentences and to help my students learned to spell phonetically, I emphasized heavily on the sounds for each word and asked my students what sound/letter they hear.
I incorporated STEM into our 2 weeks of learning as well by having my students complete a Tallest Tower challenge. I wasn’t able to take any pictures because I was busy running around laughing at the funny responses and creations of my 4-5 years old students. I can’t believe such a simple STEM challenge could be so hilarious and fun when completed by 4-5 years old kids! This challenge is part of my April STEM Pack which can be purchased from my TpT Store. You can click HERE or the photo below for a direct link to my store.
We also discussed about things that could and couldn't be recycled. To help my students fully understand the difference between recycled and garbage I had them work in pairs to complete this hands on activity.
They searched through grocery ads to find at least 5 images that were recycled and garbage. Luckily they didn't know what some of the images were, but they knew it was cans or glasses so it was recyclable. Also some of their critical thing responses were so funny. "It's a box so it's recycle." "I can't use it over and over again. It's trash."
On Earth Day, we did a “Dirt Cup” treat to celebrate our hard work learning all about ways to save the Earth. I was not able to capture photos because making the recipe in class was a lot of work! However, the recipe I used was from www.ohnuts.com. I tied this into ELA by introducing First, Next, Then, and Last to my students. We completed an anchor chart together and I focused on the oral language development of my students.
Lastly, I had my students complete a Recycled Robot project. This project turned out ahhhh-mazing and better than what I had imagined!! I am still in awe looking at these photos and the dedication of my students’ and parents’ hard work to make this project successful. My Kindergarten colleague shared this idea with me so all credit goes to her!
I hope you all had a wonderful and fun Earth Day with your kiddos! Please leave a comment down below and share what activities you did in your classroom. I would love to read all about it!
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