A Week with Earth Day

This week we will be learning a bit about our planet earth and how to take good care of it.  Earth Day is Wednesday.

Journal Time - The kiddos found an Earth on their journal!  They colored it, some kiddos added volcanoes or sharks in the ocean.  We noticed that there is way more water on our planet than land.

Four Seasons Book - We talked about the four seasons we have and what we like to do in each one.  Then the kiddos drew pictures for each season.

Science - Wind Experiment - We talked about the wind and our wind experiences.  Then we talked about what we have seen blowing in the wind.  Next we decided to see if our wind (our breath) could blow anything.  It can! 

Then we pulled out the fan, which of course the kiddos LOVED.

 

Circle Time - Today being Earth Day, we discussed things we could do to make our Earth happy or sad.  Older class and younger class:

 

Painting our Earth - The kiddos painted their plates, then later added green tissue paper continents. 
A couple of the preschoolers were naming each of their "continents" as they glued them on.

Science - Wind Again - Part 2 -  Today we tried to fly paper airplanes and snowballs (crumpled up paper) in the wind.

The kiddos were thrilled by the mini airplanes:  how they flew and even how they stuck to the fan!

 

Earth Day - Trash Walk - The kiddos and I, armed with rubber gloves, took a walk up to the Park.  As we walked, we scouted for trash to pick up we also found some wonderful nature!

The kiddos found trash for our bag and dandelions for my apron pocket.

 

Science - Clouds - During snack, Ms. Sara announced that we'd be eating clouds for science today ... Whaaaa?!

First we explored the different kinds of clouds on Mr. Adam's cloud chart.  We discovered that today's clouds were cirrus-ish.  We also learned that there are scientists who just study clouds!  Cool huh!

We talked about rain clouds (cumulus) and how they fill up with water (water cycle!).  We filled some clouds (cotton balls) up with rain (dipped them in a cup of water) then let them rain!  Squeeeeeze!  ...  Well, that's almost how the clouds do it!  Ha!

After all that cloud fun, we munched our edible clouds and then created this cloud guide.

"Y" Stick - The kiddos found this fabulous letter stick.

Friday - Toddlers - Earth Day

Learning Station - Shape Match - I just pulled out my baggie of shapes that I regularly punch out of scraps.  We talked about the colors and the shapes as they glued them.

Bean Bin -  I added a new bag of beans, so it was even more fun to dig in and sink themselves in up to their elbows.

Dr. Kit and Legos - The kiddos were checking the health of the Lego animals today.

 

I Heart The Earth - The kiddos watercolor painted their earth. 

 Tunnel - The kiddos enjoyed some tunnel time today.

 

A week on the Earth for Earth Day

Seeing how Tuesday is Earth Day, I figured this week would be a great time to get all earthy.

Nature Walk - We grabbed our buckets and headed outside for a nature walk.  The kiddos were to take a look at all the nature around them, find cool stuff and collect items for their nature mobile.

 

We found cool rocks and neat smelling bushes.

 We were quite curious to find letters on the sidewalk.  The kiddos told me what each of the letters were and I told them what word was.  I told them that peace means, no fighting & be friends.

Nature Mobiles - The kiddos picked out 5 or so items for me to tie onto their mobile.  They turned out great!  I hope they weren't too tangled in their bags.

I just had each kiddos find a big stick.  We tied, with yarn, all their treasures to it.

  
Spider! - Apparently when we brought in our nature treasures, we brought in a living treasure as well.  We watched him for a bit, then I caught him and we took him back outside.

Earth Filter - We colored coffee filters blue and green to create Earths.  Then we took them outside to spray them with water.  Once our Earths were sprayed, we sprayed each other!

Snack - The kiddos got to peel their own Easter egg, slice it and eat it!  They thought that was pretty awesome.

Happy Earth & Sad Earth - We chatted about different things we do that makes our Earth happy or sad.  Some of our ideas were throwing our trash in a bin versus littering, cleaning up our toys from the yard, playing outside instead of watching tons of tv or video games, recycling items...

Shaving Cream Rain - Another cool idea I found online.  I squirted shaving cream (clouds) in the top of a glass of water then dripped "rain" (food coloring) on the clouds.  Our first attempt we had way too thick of clouds and the rain couldn't get through.

So I scooped some of the clouds off and we tried again...it worked!

Blown Trees - The kiddos blew watered down paint across their paper with a straw to create a tree trunk and branches.  Once they dried we added fingerprint leaves.
Here we are adding leaves....

 

Water Beads - As I was looking around the Dollar Store for supplies, I came across water beads. We started "growing" them today... 

 The beads plumped up quickly!  We are excited to see how big they will be tomorrow!

Water Beads - Next Day - Look how much our water beads grew since yesterday!  Now we're going to let them dry out over the weekend and see if they get back to their beginning size.

Cotton Ball Clouds - Science Experiment - We chatted again about clouds and how they carry water and when they get too heavy with it,  they rain!  So we stuck cotton balls in water to soak it up, then they "rained" (squeezed the cotton balls) into these little cups.  I saw this idea on this blog.