Learn about Recycling for Earth Day PLUS Free Worksheets

Earth Day is on 22nd April and it’s a great opportunity to talk to our children about how we can care for our planet. As much as we’d all like to banish climate change, pollution and single use plastics with the wave of a magic wand; it’s not something we can change overnight. What we can do is make efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle and make better choices when it comes to buying single use plastics; as well as reducing our energy usage where possible. There are lots of things we can do to reduce our personal footprint on the earth; recycling is an important part of that.

Learn about Recycling for Earth Day PLUS Free Worksheets

This month, the boy has been working towards his Global Issues badge at Beavers. This involved keeping a recycling diary and taking steps around the home to reduce our waste and energy usage. I put together some worksheets on recycling for him to complete and take to Beavers to show what he’s been up to at home.

Learn about Recycling for Earth Day PLUS Free WorksheetsLearn about Recycling for Earth Day PLUS Free Worksheets

Download these worksheets for free here

The worksheets include some colouring in; a game where you put the right recycling in the right bin; a recycling diary and some questions about why and how we recycle. It’s just the thing for his Global Issues badge; but it’s also great to do at home if you’re talking about Earth Day, recycling or global issues.

I think it’s useful for adults and well as children to look again at what we throw away and see if we could do better. Or reduce what we use, recycle more or just do better when it comes to rubbish. I am trying to buy fewer things wrapped in layers and layers of plastic. I’ve virtually stopped drinking take away coffee and I refuse plastic straws. Making small changes can have a big impact. What changes are you making this year?

Learn about Recycling for Earth Day PLUS Free Worksheets

If you enjoyed this, you might also like this easy Earth Day craft.

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft

Every year we celebrate Earth Day on 22nd April. Earth Day is all about loving our planet and doing what we can to protect and care for it. It’s a good excuse for us to talk about things such as recycling, reducing our energy usage and what we can do to lower our personal impact on the planet. We will be doing a few things at home to mark Earth Day, such as reading some books about the environment, learning more about recycling and doing some Earth Day craft.

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft

To start us thinking about Earth Day, we began with a really simple but quite effective Earth Day craft. We painted a little globe, glittered it up and wrote a little message underneath. It’s easy to do and would be great to do with your child, or a group of children.

Easy Earth Day Craft

You will need:
One piece of blue card
Green poster paint
A pencil
A side plate to draw around
The hand of a small child
Some white card
A pair of scissors
Green glitter or a glitter pen
Glue

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft

How to make your Earth Day craft:
Take your side plate and put it on the blue piece of card, draw around it with your pencil. Liberally paint the palm of the hand of a small child with the green poster paint and press it in the middle of your circle. Wash the hand of the small child before it touches your walls (this part is very important).

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft

Hand the paintbrush over to the newly clean handed small child and get them to paint a few islands and continents on your globe. When this has been done to everyone’s satisfaction, either sprinkle green glitter over the hand-print or leave the paint to dry and then decorate with glitter pens.

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft

While the masterpiece dries, take a piece of white card and cut it down to size. Get the small child to write a suitable statement on the card, we went for “I love Planet Earth”. Which seemed like a suitable catch-all. Stick the writing on the blue card below the planet. I used Bostik glu dots, but use what you have, a glue stick or PVA or whatever. Your Earth Day craft is now complete.

Don’t forget to recycle it when you’ve finished with it!

If you want to learn more about Earth Day or explore the topic of recycling with your child, there are some free to download worksheets here.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like to make some cool egg and cress heads.

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft