This year, we kicked off our Earth Day celebrations a bit early. We still have plans to clean up the creek behind our house tomorrow, when it’s actually Earth Day, but I wanted to go ahead and share what we’ve been doing in case you need ideas!

Last year, our focus was on wind power/sustainable energy. If that’s your jam, you can find a link to those activities here. This year our focus is on having good Earth stewardship and being mindful of our environmental actions.

Book Review

One of my main focuses for Earth Day this year was to help the boys understand how their actions directly impact their environment. To start working on this concept, we read 2 books, One Earth by Eileen Spinelli and What a Waste by Jess French.

One Earth was a really fantastic way to help highlight the beautiful things Earth provides for us while also teaching kids the ways they can do their part in protecting the environment. I really loved the artwork and the way they used counting & rhymes to introduce earth stewardship.

What a Waste was a phenomenal way to really highlight how our little actions add up for big results, both good & bad. It got the boys to start asking a lot of good questions and excited to do their part to help the environment. There were some great diagrams that broke down the important facts into smaller tidbits the boys could absorb that I really appreciated.

Activities

Earth Treasure Hunt

A friend who knows that I’m a big science geek tagged me in a post 2 weeks ago about a cool new startup she saw called Earth Treasure Hunt. I was immediately intrigued, so I started pouring over their website and loved what I was seeing. Science based. No easily broken plastic toys. Easy set up. I could keep going, but you get the point. This looked super rad. Here’s a little snippet from their website that talks about their product:

Spark curiosity in any child with Earth Treasure Hunt, a science-based treasure hunt game focused on quality, design and natural earth treasures.
It’s simple to play. The grown-up secretly plants the treasures. The child solves the clues using science and smarts, leading them on a thrilling treasure hunt adventure through the home!

I knew this would be a perfect fit for the Earth Day activities I had planned for the boys, so I reached out and asked their founder, Lauren, if she’d be interested in partnering up. Much to my excitement, she was willing to send over a kit for both boys and I got started planning.

When the kits arrived, I couldn’t wait to start investigating them. We had a pretty busy weekend, so I wasn’t able to hide treasures until Everett was at school. I distracted Finn with some Magic School Bus and started hiding. I kind of felt like a super spy, hiding things while Finn could very easily have discovered me! However, not only did he not figure out what I was doing, I even managed to hide a treasure mere feet from where he was sitting! Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back!

When we got back from picking Everett up from school, I navigated them through the house in a way that they wouldn’t accidentally stumble on a clue before the hunt started. Everett is still struggling a bit with reading and Finn definitely can’t read yet, so it was up to me to read the cards. It took a little bit for the boys to puzzle out the clues and I could see the wheels spinning as they tossed out ideas.

Each time they figured out the clue, they raced across the house to find the next clue. The “aha” moment and excitement was something that will stay with me for a long time. Even while writing today’s blog I have a HUGE grin on my face while remembering the joy they experienced.

Then came the educational part. We talked about what each item was and how the Earth was able to provide these awesome treasures. I tied it back to the books we had read and why their treasures were so valuable. I also talked about what made these “toys” different from their plastic ones. Finn didn’t quite grasp these concepts, but Everett most definitely was able to connect the dots. Once I could tell I was losing their interest, I let them go about and do their thing. Their own thing turned out to be video calling their grandparents and giving them a run down of the treasures and a slightly disjointed science lesson!

Nature Walk Hunt

One of the things we’ve been doing a lot of lately is going on nature walks. Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve had to get creative with entertaining the boys, so we turned to the outdoors. Monday we did a little creek splashing and used a little nature hunt sheet to explore the area.

We didn’t take photos of the items above, but I did have them find items while they splashed around and we talked about them. A good friend who is also a photographer took photos of the boys as they explored and they turned out so well!

Creek Cleanup & Other Activities

Tomorrow we will be cleaning up the creek in our backyard, doing a bingo game, and a free Earth Day worksheet set I found. All in all, the lessons we are working on this week are so important. Teaching children at a young age how their actions impact the environment and maintaining those lessons as they grow up will help ensure that future generations will still have an Earth to enjoy.

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Happy 50th Earth Day! This years theme is Climate Action, so we focused on Wind Power. We read the kids Keith Negley’s newest book, The Boy and The Wild Blue Girl and made aluminum foil sailboats that we powered with wind.

Why wind power? Simple. Wind power is one of the cleanest forms of energy and can drastically reduce greenhouse gases. It’s cost effective, sustainable, and is a great clean energy source. Even better, it’s locally sourced, meaning that for us Americans, it provides local jobs and helps minimize our reliance on foreign markets.

Book Review

Our earth day read, The Boy and The Wild Blue Girl, is a story about the creation of wind turbines told in an adorable way. The wind in the story is portrayed by the Wild Blue Girl. She is seen by most as a nuisance that’s always messing things up. One boy, Poul thinks she’s amazing, and ends up creating wind turbines for her. His invention goes to show everyone just how amazing the wild blue girl is and how she can contribute to society.

The boys really enjoyed it and the illustrations are gorgeous. There is also a great bit of educational information at the end of the book about wind turbines and their inventor.

Instructions:

Our craft for today was a super simple way to show the benefits of wind. We even only used things I had laying around the house!

This craft is completely open ended. The fun part is using the tinfoil to create different sizes and styles of boats. The kids can literally create a anything their imagination can think of! For the sail, cut a sail shape out of the paper and stick it through with the toothpick. You can make little holes in the paper or just poke the toothpick through.

We used playdough to adhere the toothpick and paper sails to the boat. Then put it into the kiddie pool for a test ride! The boats all worked! Obviously the 2 year olds almost immediately capsized their boats, but the 6 year old was captivated by how it worked. He loved blowing it around the pool and watching his “wind” power the boat!

Did you try this craft? Tell us below!

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