Tot School: Earth Day

  This week was jam packed with Earth Day themed fun We learned about recycling, planting trees, and of course, the planet Earth!

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  Here were our plans for our Earth Day theme:

  And here are the details of each activity:

Our favorite books this week were:
The Earth Book By Todd Parr
Michael Recycle By Ellie Bethel
The Giving Tree By Shel Silverstein
Curious George Plants a Tree By Monica Perez
The Lorax By Dr. Seuss

Paper Plate Earth:

For this 2 step project, start out by painting a paper plate blue and green using different textured brushes. Then, allow the paint to dry completely. Tape the plate inside a shallow box and add a few marbles dipped in white paint. Finally, roll the marbles around on the plate to create clouds.

Recycled Trees:

I don’t know about you but we go through food pouches in this house like crazy! Which means tons of those little circle tops everywhere!! I came up with this recycled tree project for a fun way to use a few of them up. First, I cut up pieces of cardboard box into various sizes for Madelynn to use for the tree. I gave her the cardboard pieces and the green pouch tops and asked her to arrange them to make a tree. She used white glue to stick the tree pieces to a large piece of blue card stock. I used a dot of hot glue to stick the “leaves” in place after she decided where she wanted them.

Earth Dot Painting:

I love encouraging Madelynn to use different materials when we paint and create different crafts together. For this Earth painting we used a simple Earth outline and a cotton swab dipped in green and blue paint to create small dots.

Tree Sticky Window:

  After reading The Giving Tree, and talking about all of the things trees give us, we worked on this tree sticky window project. First, I taped contact paper to window, sticky side out of course. Madelynn used tissue paper squares to make the trunk and branches and added foam leaf shapes.

Truffula Tree Craft:

  I just couldn’t let Earth Day pass without reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Afterwards we created these simple Truffula trees using small paper plates and tissue paper squares.

Foot Paint Earth:

We took advantage of the warm weather this week and moved all of our gross motor activities outside. We began by painting a large Earth. I drew a circle on poster paper, dropped a few blobs of green and blue paint and let Madelynn get messy! **Make sure to warn your littles that this can get REALLY slippery!

Clean Up the Yard:

We’ve been talking about recycling and what we can recycle vs. throw away so I created this sorting gross motor game. I printed pictures of garbage and recyclable containers and scattered them around the yard. Then I labeled small pails with trash and recycling. Madelynn ran around to pick up the cards and sort them into the correct pail.

Truffula Tree Toss:

To make the truffula trees I scrunched up large sheets of tissue paper then taped them to popsicle sticks (In the future I would definitely use longer dowels, or skewers but we didn’t have any laying around) Madelynn stood back a few feet and tried to toss small rings around each tree.

Recycled Bag Kites:

  Have you ever seen plastic bag flying around in the wind? That was the inspiration for this activity. I simply tied a string to a plastic bag and sent Madelynn running. Of course it was NOT windy at all the day we did this activity which made for lots of tiring exercise!

 Nature Walk Checklist:

  We pulled out our nature walk checklist again this week and looked for all of the wonderful things our Earth has to offer.

Earth Day Theme Snacks:

Earth Day Popcorn: Pop a bag of microwave popcorn, divide into 2 bowls. Melt blue and green candy melts (separately). Pour blue candy melt over one bowl of popcorn and green candy melt over the other. Mix well then spread both colors over wax paper to set. Break pieces apart into bite sized pieces and combine in a large bowl.
  Earth Swirl Cookies: Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe and divide the dough in half. Dye one half blue and the other half green. Grab a piece of blue dough and add a few smaller pieces of green. Blend together and bake according to the recipe.
  Tree Snack: Use pretzel rods, sticks, and halved grapes arranged on a plate to create a tree.   Fruit Earth: Start with a large rice cake. Cut up kiwi and arrange kiwi and blueberries to create an Earth.
  Truffula Tree Snack: Use the standard Rice Krispy treat recipe but replace Rice Krispies with Trix cereal. Instead of spreading in a pan, use your hands to form the mixture into balls and add a cake pop stick to the bottom to form a truffula tree.

 Green & Blue Sensory Play: 

In this sensory bin: Shaving cream, blue & green paint, and plastic animals

Recycling Sensory Bin: 

In this sensory bin: black beans, pictures of recyclables and trash

 Play Dough Earth: 

  In this sensory bin: play dough and laminated Earth outline

Planting Trees Sensory Bin: 

  In this sensory bin: black beans, pipe cleaners, and green pouch tops

Truffula Tree Play Dough: 

In this sensory bin: play dough, pipe cleaners, and pom poms

Want all of this week’s Earth Day activities for tot school?  You can grab them here:
On my site : Earth Day Plans & Printables On TpT: Earth Day Plans & Printables

Or you can grab our entire year of themes and plans:
On my site here: Tot School Bundle On TpT here: Tot School Bundle

Then check out the rest of our 35+ themes on the Tot School Curriculum Main Page.