Earth Day Activities
Do you and you children have plans for April 22nd? If the answer is no, then it’s time you make some. April 22nd is Earth Day and a great day to teach your children about respecting and valuing the planet.
When It All Began
The first official Earth Day happened on April 22nd, 1970. It was the idea of Senator Gaylord Nelson who had been trying to call attention to environmental problems since 1963. However, Senator Nelson didn’t just want people to notice all the harms we were causing the earth. He also wanted people throughout the world to come up with a solution as to how we can make the world a better place.
Talk to Your Children
Earth Day is the perfect time to teach your children about all sorts of environmental concerns, from water pollution to global warming. Most importantly, if your children don’t already know about it, use Earth Day as a day to discuss recycling and reusing items. If you have recycling bins in your home, and your kids aren’t already experts at sorting the recyclables, then use this opportunity to get them involved! It doesn’t have to be boring.
"When I was a kid, recycling day was always so much fun in my house," says Anita, a long time recycler. "At that time, it wasn’t at all common to recycle, but in the country where my mother grew, you had to pay for the garbage you produced so recycling was just a part of her life.
"Every Saturday, my mom would get the recycling ready. She’d bundle up all the old newspapers and flyers and gather all the recyclable tins together and that’s when the fun would start! To make it easier to haul the tins, my mom would put on her wooden clogs and stomp the cans flat. My sister and I loved that and always wanted to stomp the cans. Unfortunately, I was too small to put much more than a dent in the can. But to this day I still want to stomp every can I put into the recycling bin."
Earth Day Activities
If your community or children’s school hasn’t planned any Earth Day activities, then organize some yourself. Gather together your friends and neighbors to pick up all the trash at your favorite park, playground or even on your street.
There are many non-profit organizations out there that will provide a tree for you and your children to plant for a small donation. Others groups offer tree sponsorship programs – for a small fee or donation, you can save a tree from being cut down or support a tree being planted in a national park. For just $1US, Plant-It 2020 will plant, maintain and protect your tree.
To help your kids learn about reusing items, why not do some crafts using only items that you already have around the home to make a new, useful item. Your kids can decorate an old coffee tin to make a penholder; decorate an old bag to make some original gift bags; make a bird feeder out of a milk carton or even make their own recycled paper.
