Celebrate Earth Day All Week Long

Happy Earth Day! I'm a little late to the party, but it's never too late to share a great idea. We will be celebrating Earth Day in my classroom all week long and hopefully you will too, so you can use some of these inspirational ideas later this week!

Today we spent a LOT of time discussing the importance of caring for the Earth and things we can do to keep our planet nice for everyone. We also talked extensively about recycling… what it means to recycle, what happens to garbage after we throw it away, what happens to our recyclables after they are picked up…. SO much discussion and SO many questions from those inquisitive little kindergarteners!

And OF COURSE I decided to commemorate the day with some cute classroom decor.

We made new “stained glass” window decorations with blue and green tissue paper squares. I am in love with the final outcome of our little art project. Check it out!

Window decorations are always simple to create in class. The only materials needed are clear contact paper, tissue paper squares, black construction paper (for the frame) and scissors! I prep all of the materials ahead of time and set up the frame and contact paper for my students before they begin to work. Then my kids fill in the frame with tissue paper and trim the excess contact paper once the project is complete. We make new window decor with each new season so my students are little professions at this task. Want to know more? Here are step-by-step details of the process.

“Hand-Crafted” Bulletin Board

My students made this wonderful bulletin board display in the fall. My school is a certified Michigan Green School and we created this to decorate the board beside our school's recycle center. My students had a blast using their handprints to decorate the Earth. (And I am so thankful for the wonderful parent that came was brave enough to help me take on such a messy classroom project!)
Here is the finished project. Our hallway lighting is universally unflattering for photos. After two dozen attempts at a photo, this was the best I could manage. The image quality may not be great, but I love how cute the completed bulletin board turned out!

Earth-Day Themed Emergent Reader

I also created an Interactive Sight Word Reader specifically for this week. Tomorrow my students will create their “We Can Take Care of Our World” books in school. Each page of the book displays a predictable sentence that describes the various materials we can recycle to care for the Earth. Every sentence is missing the word “our” and students have to cut out, unscramble, and glue letters into the space to add the missing word. We previewed the book in class today and went on a picture walk. My kinders are so excited to work on their own books tomorrow morning.

“We Can Take Care of Our World” sells for only $1 and is available on Teachers Pay Teachers. 


How do you celebrate Earth Day in your classroom?

Check Out These Other Stained Glass Ideas

If you are looking for more stained glass window decoration ideas, check out these blogs posts! They are filled with exciting ideas that are sure to spruce up your windows.