Earth Day in April

by Mary
(USA)

April, springtime and Earth Day all go hand in hand! Here are some simple and fun-for-all-ages preschool science activity to try.  

I start by asking my preschoolers if they have ever heard of "Earth Day"?  Some have but for the others who are not sure, I offer a brief explanation and then begin the activities and stories to help illustrate it.

I tell them that Earth Day is a holiday in which we try to celebrate and show our appreciation for the the environment of our planet Earth and to come up with solutions to fight pollution. We talk about what pollution means as well.


Why is Earth Day Important?

To teach my preschool class about pollution, I asked each child to bring in a piece of recyclable garbage.  At circle time, I had prepared an imaginary pond filled with paper fish. We sat around my pretend pond while I told them a story about how the fish live in the pond surrounded by the beautiful woods and how happy they are to live in such a wonderful pond.

Then I explained that as people visited the area for picnics, they begin to throw their trash into the water. I let each child put their piece of trash in the pond and they have to remove a fish. I let each child do this, one at a time. As more trash goes in, the fish of course have to come out. Soon the pond is full of garbage and the fish are gone. How sad for the fish and the pond.

Next we all help clean up the pond by removing the garbage and placing it into appropriate recycling containers which I have made ahead of time by taping commonly recycled items (newspaper, glass bottle, plastic container) to the outside of a paper bag.

My preschoolers truly got the message of how important it was to have the pond clean and the fish can come back to live!


Another Activity:
Growing plants in earth friendly "pots"

Preschoolers love planting things and watching them grow. They do however prefer to see this occur quickly so here is an idea for a fast growing plant for them to try--grass!

Need: egg shells, cotton balls, grass seed, water

I wanted the children to explore the processes of being able to plant something. So we planted grass inside an egg shell.

We saved egg shells from home and washed them so there would be enough for all the children. We used a cotton ball and grass seed in 15 days we had hair growing inside the hollow egg! The children loved watching the process daily as we shared and charted together.

They can take them home, plant them outside and have learned how to recycle as well. What could be better for Earth Day!