Earth Week: PK-5/K

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Earth Day is, in my opinion, one of the most important days of the year. Most of the year, we spend so wrapped up in our own needs and consumption that we forget about the needs of the planet around us or future generations. When it comes to children, it’s not easy to help them think outside of their own needs, so Earth week is a great week to teach kids their responsibility to the planet and the foliage and animals that share the planet with us, because they certainly aren’t going to think about it without our reminders and teachings!


The most fun things that you can do for earth week are going out and picking up trash and then doing something with said trash/recycling. We spent co-op day with some friends out at the playground where we picked up trash and did a nature hunt together, which was a blast. You’d think the kids would find it a miserable task, but even after they said they were done, they kept pointing out trash that needed to be picked up. It is so easy to pass by trash on a daily basis and do nothing about it or ignore it, but when you start paying attention to the junk on the side of the road, you realize how much people waste or throw into our forests, parks and waterways. My girls were shocked at how much trash they found in a field that looked pristine from far away.


Then, when we got home, I let them dig through our recycling bin to find boxes and other fun things that they could create things with. I think that they prefer getting the freedom to create on their own terms. So, we had some buildings and vehicles and rocket ships that were created, which was fun.


I also bought a compost kit and we threw a banana in one box and orange in the other. We have thoroughly enjoyed watching it compost in front of us and plan to place the healthy soil in our garden and start a new batch as soon as the fruit has completely decomposed. Watching Planet Earth and Our Planet was a fun afternoon and evening activity, and the kids really got into some of the stories and watching some of the animals.


I loved how hands-on the whole week was and I think that helped hit home the fact that we need to be better about being wasteful and make sure that we are taking care of the animals and plants on our planet. Hopefully we can raise the next generation to be action takers who help take care of our planet better than those before them! ​