17 Quick And Easy Earth Day Activities For Kids
Each year we celebrate Earth Day. It’s a day designed to help us look at ways to reduce our waste,especially plastics and recycle our un-wanted items and reuse what we can. All to remind us of how we can help keep our wonderful planet healthy.
This year a big focus is on plastic.
“From poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our waste streams and landfills, the exponential growth of plastics is now threatening the survival of our planet.In response, Earth Day 2018 is dedicated to providing the information and
inspiration needed to fundamentally change human attitude and behavior about plastics.” – Earthday.org
Tin Cans Pots For Flowers.
This is an easy craft. And best of all it’s reuseable.
- Simply take a tin can one with a ring pull top is ideal.
- Take off the top ring pull part and recycle
- Turn the tin upside down and very carefully using a long nail and a hammer. Make some holes in the base
- Now, take a tin opener, carefully open the base and let the loose bottom now slide inside the can. It wont fall out of the bottom because on the ring pull top is slightly smaller.
- There you have it. Just fill with soil and pop in your favourite plant.
We used violas but ivy, marigolds, or any other small plant will do. The tin containers do dry out quickly so make sure you check on them regularly.
Reuse Clear Drinks Cups As Mini Greenhouses For Earth Day.
This simple idea is so useful at this time of year. There are so many seeds to sow and some of them need a little extra protection to help them grow well. So reusing clear plastic cups is a perfect idea. The cup creates a mini greenhouse effect that gives the seed moist and humid air to help with germination.
Pumpkins And Self Watering Pots.
Reuse 2 litre bottles with this recycling craft. It is a super quick and easy way to recycle and grow perfect pumpkins.
- Take a clean 2 Litre bottle and carefully cut the bottle in half.
- Remove the cap and carefully make a hole in the top.
- Insert a piece of cloth or thick wool through the bottle cap and screw back onto the bottle.
- Turn the cap part of the bottle upside down and put inside the bottom half
- The cloth should hang down into the bottom part and the rest should lie inside the top part.
- Fill the top part with soil and the bottom part with water.
- Plant your pumpkin seed on its side and cover with a little more soil.
That’s it! Keep the bottom part topped up with water and as the compost dries it will naturally suck up more water through the cloth.
Earth Day Terrariums.
Reuse an old clear jar for this clever craft.
- Layer the base of the jar in stone chips, sand, stones the a layer of compost.
- Use tiny leaved plants and plant them on the soil.
- Small stones and twigs can make attractive features beside your plants.
- You could add a dinosaur or some fairies to give the kids something fun to look at.
- Cut slits in the edge of the top part of the top
- Water the compost gently and place the bottle top back on.
Perfect atmosphere for any little plant.
Explore Nature with A Scavenger Hunt
Why not try this signs of Spring Scavenger hunt? Learning about the seasons and how our world works helps us understand and care for it better.
Make a Nature Mandala.
This idea from playfullearning.net. is a fantastic way to celebrate our planet. Use whatever materials are in season such as flower petals, twigs, and leaves to make a beautiful artwork in nature. We like to decorate our Wig-wam in the woods with patterns like these.
Teach your kids to recycle
This fantastic idea from PIYC.co.uk helps teach small cchildren learn what recycling is and how to do it. Teaching kids at a young age to do their bit to reduce their waste and to reuse or recycle unwanted objects is a great way to get them to think about their planet and their place in it. How they can help make big difference in a small way.
Make a scrap paper collage.
This idea from bhg.com is stunning. It gave me the idea of using old colouring books with pictures of animals or flowers and instead of using colours to fill in the sections of the picture, use different paper and waste products. For example, this one is made from old newspapers and left over scraps of paper.
Plastic Spoon Flowers.
This is a cute idea here. I found the idea over on Kidfriendlythingstodo its ideal for using up plastic spoons and it makes a beautiful decoration for our garden.
Minions Plant Holder
This idea from Ehow.com is so cute. It could be used to hold ANYTHING from a plant, pencils to hair brushes or even pet biscuits. See what you can reuse in your home. It doesnt have to be minions either just pick a theme or a colour and go for it.
Plastic bottle butterflies
Easy craft but so effective in the kids garden as the bottle butterflies flap their wings when the wind blows. You could try bees, dragonflies or even birds. Add beads or glitter too. Find out how at fabartdiy.com
Sun Catcher
Use up left over pony beads by melting them into a beautiful sun catcher mobile. I found the instructions at Artfulparent.com
Loo roll starter pots
The cardboard insides of a toilet roll can be used for so many different things. We used them here to fill with compost and sow a seed in them. When your seed grows and is ready to plant in the garden, you can plant the whole pot.
Weather measuring.
This great recycling idea from the imagination tree uses left over bottles to make a rain gauge. This craft can doubke up as a water recycling container too. Water your seedings with the water you collect.
Seed bombs.
Totally easy craft to help your planet. Check out here the full instructions.
Bird feeders.
Check out this post on making feeders from recycled materials for your feathered friends. In Spring, birds are busy building nests and producing eggs so any food you put out for them is always appreciated.
DIY TIC TAC TOE
You don’t have to spend a lot of money on plastic toys that never get played with but ruin the planet. Why not try making your own game. In this craft we found a flat stone that we used with a hot glue gun to make the lines for our game on the stone.
Next, we painted 10 stones with opposite colours on them as game pieces. There you go.
Tic Tac Toe is a game that you can play indoors or leave outside as a garden game.
The rules for this game if you’ve never played it before…
Each player must take turns to place a stone on the 3×3 grid. The object is to be the 1st player to get 3 in a row.
So there you have 17 Quick And Easy Earth Day Activities For Kids. Don’t forget to PIN this for later !!
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I love so many of these ideas! I will definitely be making the tic tac toe board with rocks 🙂
What a great collection of ideas! Will have to try some out with kids this weekend.