Earth Day

Books for this Unit: The Earth and I by Frank Asch, Mother Earth by Nancy Luen, Oil Spill by Melvin Berger, Recycle by Gail Gibbons, Where Does the Garbage Go? by Paul Showers and Dear Children of the Earth by Shim Shimmel, any book about trees.

Students will be able to identify activities that litter and activities that help to keep our Earth clean.

Students will be able to name our planet and identify that it is mostly water with land masses called "continents".

Students will promote the clean Earth message through the grocery bag and notepads activities.

A can in the bin,
And another went in,
Recycle! Recycle!
We all recycled and added a can.
There were two in the bin and another went in.
Recycle! Recycle!

L-O-V-E...T-H-E...E-A-R-T-H-
Love the Earth.
(We speak from the heart!)
Love the Earth.
(Please do your part)
We must protect our land and sea and air.
(Let's all care!)
Now it's time to love the Earth for future families.
L-O-V-E (It's time to preserve.)
T-H-E (It's time to conserve.)
E-A-R-T-H

Take care of the earth,
It's my job!
Take care of the earth,
It's your job!.
Take care of the earth,
It's our job!
Let's take care of the earth!

Keep the air clean,
It's my job!
Keep the air clean,
It's your job!
Keep the air clean,
It's ourjob!
Let's take care of the earth.

1. Decorate brown paper grocery bags with clean Earth messages. Arrange to deliver the grocery bags to your local grocery. Wear your Earth day Hats on the trip and sing an Earth Day song. See below for photos of some bags we made. For more on this check out the Earth Day Groceries Project at http://www.earthdaybags.org. Sponsored in part by the American Forest and Paper Association, they will send you a beautiful Earth day poster.

When quiet feelings come to me,

I sit as still as still can be.

I think about trees or a pretty tune,

Or storybook time, or a big, full moon.

I think about darkness covering the town,

Or twinkling stars as I'm lying down.

I think about wings on a butterfly,

Or clouds moving across the sky.

I think about leaves, or a nest in a tree,

And all of these bring quiet feelins to me.

by Louise Binder Scott

3. Each person in the United States uses about ten pounds of paper every week. To help children understand this, weigh out one pound of newspaper on a scale. Have children imagine ten piles like this one. Think about all the trees it takes to make all the paper we use and then throw away. Have children collect scraps of paper that have been written on only one side. Ask the office to donate their scraps. Parents can collect paper from work too. Then the children cut and staple the paper to make small notepads to use for grocery lists, phone messages, etc. On the cover sheet write "Save a tree and write on me!" As an extension your class can watch the movie Ferngully. This movie's main message is to save trees.

4. Make an Earth Day globe. Stuff a brown grocery bag with newspaper. Twist tie at the top and shape into a globe. Paint it blue and have the children glue pictures of the continents in the right places. This is an excellent opportunity to review or introduce the following geographic concepts: our planet is called the Earth; and the Earth is mostly made up of ocean with a few landmasses called continents on it. Students should be able to point to and verbally identify continents and oceans on their globe.

5. Through reading of books and discussion of coloring pages below reinforce the concept that it is very important to keep our planet clean for ourselves, animals and future generations.