A great activity to do for Earth day! These small earths are made with coffee filters.

What you will need: Coffee filters, blue and green colored water (with food color) in container and eyedroppers.

Fill small cups or containers with blue and green colored water. The children use the eyedropper to pick up the water and place it on the coffee filter. This is a good activity for the little ones to practice their fine motor skills. Make sure you have something underneath the filters for easy clean up or do outside.

When the coffee filters dry they look like a small earth!

Tip: If you do not have eye droppers, use a straw, as long as your child will not try to drink it! Beware, my children did transfer this cool tip later at a restaurant!

Below: These were done with tempera paint and water and I liked the brighter colors!

So what is Earth Day?

It was founded by John McDonnell in 1970. It used to be celebrated on the first day of Spring, but now Earth Day is celebrated around the world on April 22nd. Earth day is a set aside day to recognize how we influence our limited resources from our planet. It is a day to commit and celebrate our responsibility to protect the earth and all of the creatures that live on it. Earth day should be everyday! The next few weeks I will be posting several ideas to do with your children or class to help teach or spread awareness of the earth.

Please leave your ideas or comments to share with others!

A few simple ideas to get started; Pick up trash in your neighborhood or playground, choose something from the garbage or recycling and invent another use for it and plant a tree.

Here is a detailed video on how to make a thumb print spider and other creatures with your children!

A fun way for children to practice vocabulary, writing and quick thinking! Prepare the child by talking about some of the words they know and explain they will be writing the words down on paper until you say stop.  You will need paper, pencil and a timer for this activity. Set the timer for two minutes and then see how many words the child can write in that time. Count the words and write the number at the bottom.  You can keep a chart and do this daily to watch the progress.

Also, to expand this activity you can give your child themes such as spring, school or sports or you can have them write words that start with a certain letter.

In a classroom, this would be a good pre-and post-test for a unit of study.

Younger Children:

If your child cannot write yet this activity can be modified by having the child say as many words as they can in one minute as you tally the number of words they say!

This simple recipe is fun for the children to make their own fossil prints and then eat them up. A perfect snack for when the children are studying dinosaurs, having a party or just for fun at home!

What you will need:

Round crackers

Soft cream cheese (whipped in tub is best)

Items to make fossil, like gummy dinosaurs, celery leaves, etc.

Spread the cream cheese on the cracker, press the items into the cheese and lift up to make imprint.

Doing this activity for the first time with my two and four year old brought out their different personalities so clearly and humorously.  Little Lauren literally dove into the pudding and started body painting.  Her masterpiece never made it on the wall because it never dried and we left that thing out for a few days!  I was happy with my decision to try this outside.  So, use small bowls of pudding to give your little ones that like to get dirty.  As for my contemplative four year old, he dipped in a finger or two and made a few lines and thought that was enough for him and off to wash his hands!

I used pistachio pudding for St. Patrick’s Day but like the idea of vanilla so there are no nuts in it.

Pudding Paint Recipe:
Instant Vanilla Pudding
Food Coloring
Mix pudding according to directions
Add food coloring for desired color.
You can also use different flavors of pudding for different colors of paint.

Here is a video that shows you how to make homemade playdough. She adds color to the dough to use for a theme or holiday like green for St. Patrick’s Day.

You will need:

2 cups salt

2/3 cups water

1 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup cold water

Directions:

Stir salt and water in a saucepan over heat four to five minutes. Remove from heat and add cornstarch and cold water. Stir it until smooth; return to heat and cook until thick. Store in a plastic bag.

Use clay for sculpting animals, people and many other things, it is lots of fun for the children!

Do your children get tired of the same puzzle choices at your house? Here is an easy and inexpensive way to make puzzles. At the dollar store or after the new year you can get great deals on calendars, you need to purchase two calendars and take them apart. I found some for $1.oo at Big Lots if you are not too picky on the theme!

Glue one of the pictures from the calendar on a heavy paper such as card stock and laminate or use contact paper to cover. The second picture will be used to glue on the front of the manila envelope, I laminated mine but you would not need to.

Then, cut one of the pictures into squares, the amount would depend on the age of the children. You could start with four squares for a two-three year old and work up to sixteen squares for three to five year olds.

These puzzles are easy to store and great for a classroom since you can make 12-15 out of two calendars.

You could also personalize puzzles by using photos of your family, pet, house etc.