Have a Great Kindergarten Earth Day!

The first earth day took place on April 22, 1970, and was founded by Gaylord Nelson in response to the 1969 massive oil spill that took place in Santa Barbara, California.  He wanted the nation to learn about the environment and how it is important to have a healthy and sustainable environment. 

Because our children are the future, it is important that they continue this tradition.  It is important that they not only learn about the earth and what an amazing planet it is but how we can keep creating a sustainable world. This might be a perfect time to talk about how to host a great Kindergarten Earth Day!

Start a Kindergarten Earth Day with a Conversation

It is important to teach kids that our environment is fragile.  We need to give them the knowledge of what will happen if we continue with these bad habits and that our beautiful earth may not be as beautiful.  And most importantly that some of the planet’s incredible critters may disappear forever. 

The challenge is presenting it in a way to where they understand.  A great movie for a Kindergarten Earth Day is Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.  This can give them visually an understanding of what can happen if we abused the earth’s resources but presented in a fun, engaging way.  After the movie, talk to them about its message and how it applies to our world.

What Do You Want Kids To Learn on the Kindergarten Earth Day!

Most importantly, we need to teach these young children how to make a difference.  Explaining how it is not only good for the earth but also, how great it feels to do good deeds for the community. 

You can start small by showing them how we throw things away and clean up our play areas.  Another great activity that kids love to participate in is planting trees and plants.  You can explain to them why we need trees and plants in our environment. 

Another great activity is presenting them with a whole table full of items and having them sort into the following piles: paper, plastic, and glass.  Take them out on their playground to find trash to help throw away.  

Introducing new vocabulary words to them will help as well.  Not only are they learning new words but these are words that can contribute to explaining activities that we can do to help our earth.  These words can be “recycle,” “reduce,” and “reuse” could be great words to learn on Kindergarten Earth Day! 

You can give them the visual of reusing and recycling items by using used boxes or paper towel holders to reuse to create fun art pieces such as robots and puppets.  It is most important to keep it fun and light.