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What is Earth Day? 🤔
Restore Our Earth- The first Earth Day was held in 1970, people roamed the streets taking a stand for environmental change, this is seen as the beginning of modern environmental activism. Over the years the internet has helped significantly to spread the message further.
This year the theme for Earth Day is fittingly “Restore the Earth” focusing not only on the need to reduce the human impact on the planet but also the recovery of the effects from Covid-19- in turn we can all play a part in repairing the damage we’ve done.
How can you and your class get involved?
Earth Documentary 🎥
It’s important that children know about the world around them and to teach them about how they can care for the planet. A great way to do this is to screen a kid-friendly earth documentary that establishes what is happening on our planet now, and how this can have an impact in the future.
Play one of these great earth documentaries as a treat on Earth Week:
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Paint/Colour the symbol
Practising recognizing the recycle symbol through art can get kids to memorise and remember the symbol and what it stands for. Kids can then recall seeing the symbol and what it means in the world around them and actively recycle at school and at home.
Make a Robot
Ask each child to bring in an object that they would usually throw away into class this can be a yogurt container or even a milk carton.
Then assign the class into groups according to what they have brought in, ask them to use their imagination and create something awesome together using their items.
Reinforce that objects that can be made from recyclable materials and that this is much safer and cleaner option for the environment.
Bird Feeder
Getting into nature is something we here at Guide to Life are very passionate about and as it is now spring, what better time than now to get your class making their very own bird feeders!
This is simple to do with these few supplies;
- Peanut Butter (Soy, Almond and Sunflower Butter can work too)
- Craft/Popsicle Sticks
- Bird Seed
- Toilet Paper Rolls
- Twine/String
When your students have made their bird feeders, they can hang them perfectly on trees at school, at home or even out on walks, a perfect way to show kids how to recycle and give back to the earth.
Helping the Earth 🌎
Having a discussion about helping the earth will help your pupils to understand what they can do to help, not just on Earth day but every day!
By discussing these improvements and ways to help the earth, leads to a great activity worksheet we have created “what can I do to help the Earth?” this is a quick and easy way your class can note down the things that they have discussed and already do at home or in school.
Examples of what your class can do to help the Earth
- Turn of lights when not in the room
- Walk or Cycle to School
- Grow Fruit or Vegetables at home/school
- Don’t leave the tap running while brushing your teeth
Helping Each Other (Covid-19) ❤️
As part of the theme for Earth Day 2021 (Restore our Earth) we are not just taking time to mend the Earth but also each other. It has been over a year since we were in Lockdown and this has taken a toll on wellbeing of people all over the world.
As most children are now back in some form of school framework, check-in with how they are doing with extended circle times and one-to-one talking sessions are couple of ways to get back in touch with each other as we move to a somewhat normal lifestyle.
Other activities that can bring everyone together:
- Send out a thank-you card to key-workers
- Make a people paper chain
- Pen-Pal in the class
- Own clothes day/PJ’s day
Grow🌱
In the spirit of spring plant and grow something with your class, this can be flowers, vegetables or herbs. For younger children we recommend using larger seeds which are going to be easier for them to handle such as peas, beans, sunflower seeds or sweetcorn.
Something about caring for plants increases our wellbeing, studies suggest that people who dedicate their time to caring for plants have less stress in their lives for this reason we believe that, plants have a soothing quality and provide a positive way for people to channel their stress into nurturing. Another positive for giving back to ourselves and restore the Earth!
For planting seeds with your class having a way that they can see the development and process of the plants growing would be most beneficial. Keeping in mind with the theme of Restore our Earth.
We recommend using plastic bottles cut in half and use the top half filled with soil and lodged in to the bottom half of the plastic bottle upside down so the seeds can grow and also collect water from the bottom half of the plastic bottle.
You can then get pupils to plant what seeds that spark interest to them. Children can water the seeds when necessary and watch the seeds grow while in class or at home.
