Earth Day Activities in the Classroom

Our school has earned the distinction of being a Green School. There is quite a lengthy process to go through to earn this title so we are quite proud of it! We are very involved in recycling projects, adopting endangered species and being mindful of the three R's! This week our lessons were themed around  the Earth, conservation, natural resources and "going green"! Here are just a few of the activities we did and ones that I remembered to take a picture of!

The class viewed this Earth Day PowerPoint I made.  They really enjoyed seeing the real photographs. We had some fantastic discussions during the lessons!

We sang a catchy song about goin' green and keeping the Earth clean too! You can download these songs on iTunes or Amazon. They are from Have Fun Teaching. I try to work music into our daily routine and into every lesson when possible! The kids love to sing along as they work or during brain breaks!

I love all of the songs on this album!

We discussed the meaning of the words reduce, reuse and recycle! The children discussed ways that they can help the Earth both at home and at school. Tomorrow we work on an Earth Day sort with things that help and hurt the Earth.

Monday, the entire school participated in a school grounds clean-up challenge! It was disgustingly good fun!

We worked on calculator skills as we totaled up how many pieces of garbage the class collected as a group. We counted over 700! We decided to clean up the area around our baseball diamond where visitors drop and leave behind their drink containers and snack wrappers. The kids were shocked at how much trash had been left behind!

This was a fun and cute rebus story from Lori at Teaching With Love and Laughter! The kids absolutely loved it. I was impressed with the creative ways they used the pictures in their writing.

The class enjoyed making this colorful project from A Cupcake for the Teacher to display on the bulletin board!

  These sparkly raindrops and an adorable raincoat kid decorate our ceiling for our April Showers theme. Keeping the Earth's water clean and conserving natural resources is something we discussed as well.

We are also reading informational texts from Scholastic News Magazines that focus on Earth Week topics.I save an issue every year and read them together like a big book on the SMARTBoard under the doc cam.

 During these reading lessons, we are reviewing nonfiction text features like bold print, captions and headings. Head over to Scholastic online to see the great collection of free resources and printables!

Our read alouds are from author and illustrator Schim Schimmel. This is one of my favorite books! The illustrations are amazing! The author asks the children to deliver the important message and just simply to love the earth. This is a great story for teaching point of view. It is told from the perspective of the Earth.

We are wrapping up the week with a fun Friday movie that ties in beautifully with our theme~ The Lorax! Yay for a much-needed movie day!

Love this little guy!

Hope your Earth week activities were lots of fun! Here's a little freebie poem you can save away for next year. I meant to get it up sooner, but it was just one of those weeks! :)