Earth Day is April 22nd. It’s a great opportunity to teach your children about the environment and what they can do to help preserve it. Even the youngest kids can learn to appreciate the Earth and help to make it a more beautiful place.
April 22 is celebrated globally by over 175 countries as Earth Day. Celebrating the preservation of our planet’s environment is important to adults and children alike. Children have many activities they can take part in to help the Earth. We hope this list of Earth Day ideas inspires you to have a wonderful Earth Day every day!
Create a Terrarium
This simple terrarium can be made by children ages 4 and up. By using every part of the bottle children can learn about recycling instead of waste.
Needed:
- Personal size plastic water bottles with a cap
- Scissors
- Dirt
- Seeds
- Water
The first step in this craft is to remove the label around the bottle and properly dispose of it. Put the cap aside. Make sure to wash the bottle. Cut the bottle where the bottom of label ended. Pour in some dirt into the bottom of the cut base. Plant 2 seeds and water lightly. Put the top portion of the bottle back onto the base so that the entire bottle is together again. Twist the cap onto the bottle. Place in sun and watch your garden grow. When ready, plant in a garden or new pot.
Head outside!
Spring is in the air and it’s a great time to step outside and appreicate the world around you. Play in your backyard, take a hike or head to the local park. While you’re enjoying the scenery, take time to teach your children about the importance of our bee population to help things grow. Encourage them to ask questions and look at their environment in new ways.
While you’re outside playing, be sure to take along some fun outdoor toys from the new Waboba REWILD Eco-Friendly Series. Footballs, soccer balls, volleyballs, and paddle sets – all of them made from the jute plant and rubber tree. They’re proof that you can have sports fun and help save the planet at the same time. A perfect fit for Earth Day and every day!
Plant a Tree
Nobody seems to know for sure how many trees are cut down per year, but some estimates place the number at over 11 billion. That’s a lot of trees.
If you’ve got the space in your yard, consider planting a tree together. Let your kids go with you to the nursery and pick out the tree. You can plant it together and teach them how to care for the sapling. Watching it grow year after year will provide a unique yardstick to measure the passing time.
Start a Recycling Bin
Does your city offer a recycling program? Even if it doesn’t, it’s easy to start recycling bin in your home and make trips to the local recycling center. Teach your children which items they can recycle and which will go into the regular garbage can.
Plant a Community Garden
If you live in a neighborhood that will allow it, why band together with your neighbors to plant a garden that everyone can tend and enjoy?
Gardens provide benefits to a lot of bugs and the birds that eat them. It’s also a great way to teach kids about the way the food is produced that they eat every day. Not to mention the joy of eating fresh veggies they helped to grow.
Make Reusable Shopping Bags
Between 500 billion and one trillion plastic grocery bags are used every year. Even if you reuse your old plastic grocery bags, they still end up in a landfill at some point in the future. Switching to reusable shopping bags can eliminate the need for hundreds of shopping bags every year.
You can make shopping bags out of materials you have around the house. You can use everything from old t-shirts to dog food bags. If you are more handy with a crochet hook than a sewing machine you can make crocheted shopping bags.
Organize a Swap With Friends
Reducing the amount of new goods that you buy will help reduce the amount of natural resources that are consumed in the production of those items and eliminate some of the waste that is sent to the landfill every year.
Get together with your friends and organize a swap. You can limit it to just one type of thing like clothes, books, or toys or you can have everybody bring all of their old, gently used items and try to find them a loving new home.
Not only is this a great way to help the earth, but kids will love their “new” treasures. Parents will appreciate the money they save over buying brand new.
