Fun ways to celebrate Earth Day with kids

Earth Day’s mission is to diversify, educate, and activate the environmental movement worldwide. Our planet needs the help of people who care about it. Parents are uniquely positioned to create more of those people by what they teach their children. These Earth Day activities are enjoyable and a great way to get kids thinking about the planet.

Grow wheatgrass indoors. Wheatgrass is hardy and grows quickly. Bonus: its superfood properties may help you keep up energetically with said preschooler.

Make a container fairy garden. Kids like imagining what fairies would enjoy in their gardens, and you can introduce them to moss, succulents, and other plants.

Show little ones the power of the sun with construction paper sun prints.

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest threats to our planet. It physically harms wildlife, impacts human health, and is devastating our oceans. Involve kids in making a plastic audit of the household, and ask them for ideas to reduce the family’s personal plastic pollution.

Bees are an important part of our ecosystem, and they’re dying off at an alarming rate. Make a bee-friendly garden and include a bee-house. Level up: learn about beekeeping. Note: If allergies are in the family, teach kids about bees virtually.

Find suggestions for pre-K through seventh-grade readers on this list, and for middle grade readers on this list. Earth Day, Hooray is for grades 2-4 and helps with math skills. High schoolers may enjoy Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a book so powerful it eventually lead to the banning of DDT. Get your Dr. Seuss fix with The Lorax.

Clean up the neighborhood or an area in town that needs help. Community cleanups can include beautification projects like planting flowers. Plan something that gets others involved with these helpful tips.

Go on a neighborhood scavenger hunt. Younger kids can find three types of flowers, older kids can identify five species of trees. Everyone can pick up seven pieces of trash. 

Earth Day Cookies and Worms and Dirt Cake are easy and tasty.

Double-dog dare: actual Earthworm Cake or Grasshopper and Cricket Pie. 

Triple-dog dare: make it sustainable by starting your own worm, cricket, or grasshopper farm.