Earth Day

April is coming! Are you ready for Earth Day! Well I have some great ideas for you! 

IDEA #1: Plant a bean on April 1st

One thing I LOVE to do with the students is plant flowers or seeds to show the life cycle of a plant.  They LOVED taking the plants home with them.  A bean plant takes an average of 25 days to grow beans.  If you plant the bean on April 1st, they may have beans by the end of the month!  You can show this time lapse video of a bean plant growing and discuss what happened.  Here is one video with a fun music sound track.  If you plant green beans, which is what is growing in the video, you can show the students what is happening each day as their plant grows.

IDEA #2: Write about the Earth

How do April showers bring May flowers?? You can use this free coloring and writing page as a resource for you lesson!  The students can write about any prompt you want to give them or they can write about how the plant they planted (idea #1) changed over time.  

Idea #3: Complete an upcycle project!

Upcycling is a fun way to combine art and science! It takes hundreds of years for some things to decompose at landfills! Instead of throwing things away they can be upcycled!  There are lots of upcycling ideas on Pinterest, but you can also grab this easy to do activity here!  It has instructions for an upcycling project and response sheets that are both printable and digital.

Idea #4: Have a recycling race

A recycling race would take a little more preparation but it would be totally worth it! The students love this activity!  Collect as many different kinds of recyclables as you can (cleaned).  Put them in a few buckets.  Have three bins in the center of the room or field.  The students who are on different teams have to race, one at a time, to recycle the materials in their bucket.  Which ever team correctly recycles all of their items first wins.  It is best to have a mix of paper, plastic and metal items for this activity. 

To prepare the students for this fun activity you could have them do some recycling activities like these!

This great resource that includes information about recycling and upcycling our natural resources! This resource is printable and digital! So its perfect for all classrooms!  Check it out here!

<3 Deb Wray

Ms. Avrick's Owlets