Earth Day Activities for Kids

I feel like I’ve written about Earth Day a lot, and that’s a good thing because it’s important to take some time to think about how humans are treating the earth and things we can do to help it.

We’ve covered Earth Day printables, some crafts and recycled activities, and shard ideas for celebrating Earth Day with kids.

How about some Earth Day games? My Motherhood Made Easy has a set of printable Earth Day themed games including bingo, a word scramble, maze and puzzles. These would be great to use in a classroom when you’re talking about Earth Day, or you can use at least some of them at home, depending on how many kids you have.

I love a good STEM challenge, and of course there are Earth Day themed STEM challenges out there. The Homeschool Resource Room has a great list of STEM projects you can try for Earth Day, including making a potato battery and building with recyclable materials. Some of these wouldn’t work as well in a classroom but they’re great for home.

Kids can figure out how their choices make an environmental impact with this carbon footprint printable activity from Little Bins for Little Hands. It’s a good way to focus on little things that we all can do that collectively can make a difference for the planet.

The I can help the earth worksheet printable from Crafts By Ria is another way to have these conversations, and you can turn the printed sheet into a little book while you talk about different things kids can do to help the planet such as recycling and walking places when they can.

Speaking of recycling, Adventure in a Box has a printable game for sorting the recycling to help kids learn what is and is not able to be recycled. You can also talk about how some food items can be composted and different ways the recycling might be separated to make it easier to recycle.

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Summer Reading Printables and Tips for Parents

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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