Earth Day

With Todd Parr’s colorful illustrations and simple text, The Earth Book includes easy ideas for working together to take good care of the earth, from planting a tree and using both sides of the paper to saving energy and reusing old things in new ways.

Printable coloring pages from the book can be found here. http://www.toddparr.com/imgs/fun/earthbook_coloring.pdf

Teachers share their many ideas for Earth Day activities on the Scholastic books site. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/2017/earth-day-activities/

As the round hole through the pages of this book grows larger, children will enjoy  guessing the identity of the object that’s round like a ball, hot and cold, every color, always moving, and home to us all. Lisa Campbell Ernst has written and illustrated a colorful and fun introductory book to science and our earth.

Two young families in two very different parts of the world each plant a tree. As the trees flourish, so do the families. The eye-catching illustrations show how trees help clean the air, enrich the soil, and give fruit and shade. I used a flannel board with this book during storytime and the preschoolers really enjoyed adding felt flowers, leaves and fruit to the tree.

The preschoolers enjoyed this simple and fun story about a little boy and his grandma gardening; beginning with deciding what to plant all the way to eating what was planted during a year of gardening from tilling the soil to harvest time.

This enchanting book invites children to imagine that they are the Earth, beginning with space, spinning and dancing around the sun, larger than the moon. Forests, seas, and deserts form a brightly colored quilt which is home to many creatures. The book invites the readers to “Wiggle your shoulders/ and mountains tremble and quake./ Shake your hair and feel windswept grasses tickle your face.”

The Earth and I is beautifully illustrated with vibrant rainbow colors and tells the tale of the adventures of a child in nature as he rides the back of a tortoise, plants vegetables, sings with the birds, and dances in the wind.

Wind Science

The Wind Blew by Pat Hutchins is a wonderful rhyming tale of the wind that is blowing everyone’s things away. The Scholastic site has extension activities geared to the book.

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plans/teaching-content/wind-blew-extension-activities/

Windblown is an entertaining book that shows ways that different colored shapes can be combined to make different pictures and characters. The narrative is short and simple and the colorful illustrations show a variety of creative creations.

 Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser authored this wonderfully illustrated picture book that tells of the journey of a lone, yellow plastic bag that escaped from a landfill and the environmental consequences as well as the ways unwanted items can be reused.

In this wind experiment at the link below, children can build simple devices to collect things blowing in the wind.  They’ll need a few plastic lids, petroleum jelly, a magnifying glass, a paper punch to punch a hole in each lid, yarn and a windy day.  After hanging them outside on a windy day for a while, children can examine what the wind has blown into their lid.

http://stem-works.com/external/activity/20

Activities at the link below include the key science concepts that wind can move things and that wind is moving air.

Ideas include discussions that the wind can move things such as clouds in the sky, and sailboats on the water. Have children, think and demonstrate different ways they can make the air move and create a breeze (blowing, waving the hands, using a fan, etc.). Ask if they know of any tools or machines that move air (hair dryers, fans, etc.).

Wind experimentation and prediction as well as directions for a simple windsock made from a paper bowl, tissue paper, crepe paper streamers and pipe cleaners.

http://www.ready-set-read.com/2013/04/preschool-theme-wind.html

In this experiment children blow on objects to simulate the wind (a wooden block, paper cup, metal spoon, piece of construction paper, craft pom pom, feather, and rock).

http://www.prekinders.com/can-the-wind-move-it/

Other wind themed activities can be found at https://www.kidssoup.com/activity/wind-and-air-activities-crafts-games-and-printables and http://sciencing.com/science-activities-air-preschool-ages-6468647.html.

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