8 Activities to Celebrate Earth Day with Kids

Does your family celebrate Earth Day? This year's Earth Day is Friday, April 22, 2022. There are so many fun ways to celebrate Earth Day with your kids and help kids understand the importance of Earth Day. I've compiled a list of 8 activities to celebrate Earth Day with kids.

What is Earth Day? 

According to EarthDay.org, the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, inspiring 20 million Americans to demonstrate against the deteriorating environment. Today, Earth Day is a global event, with more than a billion people every year acting to change human behavior and create policy change.

How to Celebrate Earth Day with Kids

Tierra Encantada, a Spanish immersion daycare and preschool, offers some great Earth Day activities. These are fun Earth Day activities for preschoolers! Teachers could also use these activities for Earth Day in school. I actually did these Earth Day projects with my daughter when she was 4 during our "kid school" phase during Covid-19 quarantine.

• Water Cycle in a Bag: Take a resealable plastic bag and decorate it with sun and clouds. Add water to the bag (and some blue food coloring, if you prefer), and seal the bag. Tape your bag to a window that gets direct sunlight and watch as the water evaporates, condenses into tiny droplets, and "rains" back down.
• Seedling Jar: Grab a handful of seeds (we've used dried beans), a glass jar or clear plastic cup, paper towels, and water. Soak the paper towels in water and place them into your jar. Then add the seeds, sit back, and over the next few days, watch as the seeds crack open and start growing roots.

Dr. Stephanie suggests these Earth Day activities, perfect for helping kids understand how to reuse and recycle.

• Recycled Rainbow Crayons: Place broken crayons (paper wrappings peeled off) in an oven-safe mold or muffin tin. (To make it easier to get them out and prevent wax from ruining your good muffin tin, use muffin cups.) Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, and then bake the crayon bits for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool before popping out your new crayons.
• Make Recycled Paper: Take scrap bits of paper and soak them in water. Then blend the wet paper in your blender. That mixture gets added to a large container with even more water. A metal screen and a picture frame can be used to collect the pulp. Let your paper dry!
• Make S'mores in a Solar Oven: With a cardboard box (like an old pizza box), aluminum foil, a large piece of clear plastic or glass (like picture frame glass or plastic wrap), tape, and the S'mores ingredients, you can use the sun to melt the chocolate and marshmallows. Parents can use this opportunity to talk about renewable resources for energy and how greenhouses work. Then you get to have a snack!

Cool the Climate also has great Earth Day activities for elementary students in grades Kindergarten through 6th grade. If you're a teacher, any of these resources would make a great Earth Day project for students.

• Cool the Climate! movie: This 30-minute movie presented by UNICEF with the UN's Global Goal of Climate Action introduces the climate issue to kids in a simple, comprehensive, and inspirational way.
• Games and Coloring Pages: Playing the site's interactive digital games helps save jungles based on the number of points players earn. Parents can also download and print Earth Day-themed coloring pages for off-screen play.
• Comic Books: Free downloadable comic books inspire children to save the climate and fight smog.

If you want more ideas of things to do for Earth Day, check out my Earth Day Pinterest board. I've pinned a variety of Earth Day project ideas and Earth Day crafts suitable for a variety of ages. From nature walk scavenger hunts to Earth Day-themed snacks, you'll find a lot of ideas to celebrate Earth Day for kids.

Let me know in the comments what your favorite Earth Day activities are!