April 22 is Earth Day, and all of April is known as Earth Month. And this year’s Earth Day theme is “Invest in Our Planet.” While this is mainly focused toward businesses and governments, there are ways that we can teach our kids both to invest in and to care for our planet. Whether your family is highly conscious of environmental issues or not, there are little things we can each do to take care of our world. So let’s look at a few ways to celebrate Earth Day with our kids!
Large environmental issues might be a little much for our kids, but we can break the big ideas down into small pieces that would matter to them.
Litter and trash
Trash and litter are easy for kids to understand, so it’s a great way to start. Children will easily take up the cause of keeping our streets and sidewalks clean. Often, we as parents prefer that our kids not pick up anything lying around, and there is good reason to be cautious. But we can still allow and encourage them to clean up the things they see with our help. It really comes down to our being willing to make it work. So, as parents, we need to consider how much we’re willing to have our kids do in this clean-up area. Maybe it’s a matter of keeping gloves, trash bags, and hand sanitizer handy. Or maybe there’s another way you could help your kids in a clean up effort.
Kids can learn about keeping the earth free of litter at home too. We can work on setting up recycling systems in our homes. We can clean up our own trash instead of leaving it around the house or in our cars.
Efforts at home
Speaking of environmental issues at home, we can also teach our kids about the wise use of electricity and water. You can read more about these home efforts here. There are several small ways we can celebrate Earth Day with our kids.
Clothing
Being careful and smart about clothing is another way we can teach our kids to invest in our world. This could look like thrifting or like purchasing from sustainable brands. It could be that we pass clothing down to siblings or friends, or even that we post it for sale. Maybe it would look like keeping a limited number of items, or like using a laundry detergent that has natural ingredients. Perhaps clothing is an area where your family can be conscious and careful.
Write letters
Kids love to color and make notes. So maybe we could use this fun activity to create letters to local companies asking them to use environmentally friendly practices. In this way, we could participate in this year’s theme, encouraging companies and even governments to make some investments toward taking care of our world. This is a great activity to use in celebrating Earth Day with our kids!
My Signing Time
A fun way to get your kids on board is to watch our free video What If Everyone Did It? over at My Signing Time. You can also check out the free Signing Time Dictionary to learn signs to support your Earth Day efforts.
And for more about our world, check out Rachel & the TreeSchoolers, our show all about science and our world. You can watch all of the episodes of Rachel & the TreeSchoolers with a My Signing Time digital subscription. If you don’t have a subscription, you can try it out with a free 14-day trial right here!