Earth Day Printables and Activities

I know doing printables for Earth Day doesn’t sound very eco friendly, but it does give you a chance to talk to kids about how you can make the classroom or the home a little greener by only printing what you need, using low ink or only black and white printing, printing on the back of other pages, using recycled paper and recycling what you can when you are done.

These Earth Day printables help kids learn about Earth Day or use earth designs.

Pre-K Pages has Earth Day math printables, including a dice rolling game with a recycling theme, graphing, number grouping and sequencing activities.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has a variety of printables for Earth Day including writing prompts, plant life cycle worksheets and links to other activities.

A Dab of Glue will Do has a little printable emergent reader book that explores the basics of Earth Day and some things we can all do to be kind to the planet. You can print it in color or black and white and have kids color it themselves.

Speaking of coloring pages, Preschool Mom has a collection of coloring pages with color versions that you can use as posters in the classroom as well as having kids color the black and white ones.

I love all the printable hands on activities from Differentiated Kindergarten, which help kids build fine motor skills with an Earth Day twist. You’ll find printable mats for use with playdough, geo boards, snap cubes, pattern blocks and Legos, as well as a Q-tip painting activity. You can get these when you sign up for emails.

Here are a few more quick printable Earth Day activities for your kiddos:

Crayons and Cravings: Earth Day Word Search
Tot Schooling: Color by Letter and Happy and Sad Earth Sorting Activity
Rock Your Homeschool: Earth Day Cootie Catcher

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Black History Month Activities for Kids

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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