Earth Day Activities

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Earth Day presents a wonderful opportunity to teach students about needs and wants, recycling, reusing, and reducing. Here are some beloved Earth Day activities I do with my students each year!

Literacy Earth Day Activities

I often introduce Earth Day concepts through books and emergent readers or reading comprehension passages. Books are a great way to introduce students to the importance of taking care of our planet. Students learn how to reduce, reuse, and recycle and practice reading and reading comprehension skills at the same time using reading comprehension passages or non-fiction text evidence reading passages.

Students can also practice literacy skills such as rhyming, alphabetical order, sentence comprehension, and personification with Earth Day concepts and vocabulary words.

Earth Day ABC Order is a fun activity where students color pictures associated with Earth Day vocabulary words. Then, students cut out and alphabetize the words. After they have alphabetized the words, students glue them on another sheet of paper. Students could complete this activity in a literacy journal or a separate piece of paper.

Writing Earth Day Activities

Earth Day is a great opportunity for students to write about their learning. After learning about different ways to take care of the Earth, students can brainstorm and write about ways they would take care of the Earth. I’ve created templates for both older and younger students. Also, students can complete a craft of the Earth to accompany their Earth Day writing.

Students could also showcase their Earth Day learning by writing an Earth Day acrostic poem.

Students can also make a craft of the Earth and turn it into an Earth Day booklet. Inside the booklet, students can write about Earth Day and different ways to take care of the Earth.

For another fun Earth Day activity, students can learn about personification! Mother Nature provides a fun opportunity to teach students about personification. Students are given a noun and a verb and have to use them in a sentence. When finished, students have learned about sentence structure, nouns and verbs, and personification. Lastly, students create a drawing to go with the sentence they created.

Teaching Recycling, Composting, Reusing, and Needs and Wants

Among the many Earth Day activities students can partake in, teaching students how to take care of Earth comes at the top of the list. Earth Day is a wonderful opportunity to teach students about recycling, reducing, reusing, composting, and needs and wants. Students can read books about these topics and then complete recycling sorts and needs and wants sorts to demonstrate their knowledge.

Math Earth Day Activities

If you’re looking for fun and simple math Earth Day activities, try a hundreds chart mystery picture or a missing addends challenge! Students will follow a color code to find and color numbers on a hundreds chart. When finished, the mystery picture will be revealed – Earth!

For a fun missing addends challenge, students can solve for the missing addends that are represented by pictures related to Earth Day.

If you would like to do any of these fun Earth Day activities with you students, I have compiled them into a fun resource! Students can build literacy, math, and critical thinking skills all while learning about the importance of taking care of our planet.

Earth Day Activities Craft Recycling Sort Recycle Needs and Wants Worksheets

This 73-page Earth Day learning resource contains vocabulary cards, emergent readers, text evidence reading passages, and reading comprehension passages on Earth Day and recycling. Students can use the included graphic organizers to brainstorm their learning. After students learn about Earth Day, recycling, and needs and wants, students can showcase their knowledge with the included recycling sort, compost or recycle sort, needs and wants sort, and Earth Day writing activities. An Earth Day craft is also included!

Additionally, included Earth Day-themed activities will provide students practice with the literacy skills of rhyming, ABC Order, word searches, fill-in-the-blank sentences, making words, and much more! Students will also have the opportunity to practice missing addends and numbers to 100 using the included Earth Day-themed math activities.

Students will be engaged and challenged while exploring Earth Day and the importance of recycling and needs and wants.

Here Is What Is Included:

  • Earth Day Vocabulary Cards
  • Earth Day Graphic Organizers
  • Earth Day Emergent Reader
  • Earth Day Text Evidence Reading Passage
  • Earth Day Text Evidence Reading Passage Answer Key
  • Earth Day Reading Comprehension Passage
  • Earth Day Reading Comprehension Passage Answer Key
  • Recycling Graphic Organizers
  • Let’s Recycle Emergent Reader
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Emergent Reader
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Text Evidence Reading Passage
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Text Evidence Reading Passage Answer Key
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Reading Comprehension Passage
  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Reading Comprehension Passage Answer Key
  • Recycling Sort
  • Recycling Sort Answer Key
  • Compost or Recycle? Cut and Paste
  • Compost or Recycle? Cut and Paste Answer Key
  • Needs and Wants Picture Activity
  • Needs and Wants Cut and Paste
  • Needs and Wants Cut and Paste Answer Key
  • Earth Day Projects
  • Recycled Art Craft Template
  • Mother Nature and Personification Activity
  • Earth Craft
  • Earth Day Book Template
  • Earth Day Writing Templates
  • Earth Day Acrostic Poem
  • Rhyming Fun!
  • Rhyming Fun! Answer Key
  • ABC Order
  • ABC Order Answer Key
  • Word Search
  • Word Search Answer Key
  • Fill-in-the-Blank
  • Fill-in-the-Blank Answer Key
  • Making Words
  • Making Words Answer Key
  • Products Made From Trees List Activity
  • Products Made From Trees List Activity Answer Key
  • Missing Addends Worksheet
  • Missing Addends Worksheet Answer Key
  • Mystery Hundreds Chart Picture
  • Mystery Hundreds Chart Picture Answer Key
  • Website and Book Recommendations
  • Answer Keys are Included

If you would like to grab a copy, you can get it here. I hope you and your students enjoy learning about Earth Day!