Three Activities for Teaching Earth Day in First Grade and a Free Earth Day Book

Earth Day Activities for First Grade

I LOVE April! The weather is beginning to warm, and the flowers are starting to bloom. It's the Goldilocks month- not too hot, not too cold...but JUST RIGHT! It really is such a great month to teach about how awesome our Earth is and ways we can take care of it. I hope these Earth Day activities for first grade will help you plan some quick and easy lessons this month.

Activity 1- Reduce

1. The word reduce is likely a new word for many of your students. Start by teaching kids that the word "reduce" means to use less of something. Water is a great item to teach students about using less of it, electricity is also a good option.
2. Brainstorm with kids all of the ways they use water. Write down their ideas as they share them. They might think of drinking, bathing, washing clothes or dishes, watering grass, swimming. 
3. Next, talk about "why". Why should we use less water? Many students have probably never thought about using less water. We turn on the tap and water magically comes out!
4. Last, have students think of ways to use less water. Again, you may want to write down their ideas as they share them. Some simple ideas for first graders to grasp are: turning off the water while they brush their teeth and making sure they shut the tap completely off when they are finished washing. This is a great prompt for students to write about in their journals.
   

Want some ready to go activities for teaching Earth Day?  I have written mini-books to help teach these topics to your students.

Activity 2- Reuse

1. Bring some reusable and nonreusable items into your classrooms such as disposable and reusable water bottles, plastic and reusable grocery bags, paper towels and dishcloths, regular and paper plates. 
2. Show the "pairs" of items to your class one at a time. Ask what happens when you finish using the items. Help students see that some items get used once and then thrown away (or recycled) while others can be used again and again!
3. Last have students get creative! Show items such as a cardboard box or glass jar and have them write about ways they could reuse one of the items.

Want a craft project to go along with this lesson?  Check out this fun reuse-it craft project!

Activity 3- Recycle

1. Consider reading a book such as The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling by Alison Inches. 
2. Bring a variety of items (recyclables and non-recyclables) into your classroom. Some good non-recyclable items include styrofoam, fast food cups and packaging, used pizza boxes, and plastic utensils.
3. Go through the items together the first time and sort them into two groups: recyclables & trash.
4. Talk about how the non-recyclable items will go to the landfill.
5. Now sort the recyclable items into categories: glass, cans, plastics, and cardboard/paper.
6. Since you have learned all three R's, today is a good day to talk about which one is better? While recycling is good, we want students to begin to grasp that reducing and reusing is even better!

Try one of the Earth Day books for free here.

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Interactive Science Notebook

I have had several people asking me what I have students write under the flaps in my Science and Social Studies Interactive Notebooks.  Today I am sharing some photographs of what you could have your students write underneath the flaps of my Science Notebook.  These are just ideas, I think it is very important for students to synthesize their own learning, and make decisions about what they think should be under the flaps. I always do some kind of activity with the content whether it is a read-aloud book, our text book, a video, power point slide show, etc. Also, the projects are designed to be flexible, so you can tailor them to your curriculum and standards.


Some projects require no writing, they are simply cut and glue projects:

 

 A Week of Weather is designed to be part of the class recording a week of weather.  Each day, students will observe the weather, and choose one to three types of weather to glue for that day.

I love this project!  It helps students see how the earth rotates around the sun.  Just be sure to not glue the Earth circle!

 I don't have the students do any writing on this project, I just want them to start learning the names and order of the planets.  You could have them write something about the planet on the backside of the flap.

 You could have students write about each label, if you wanted.  

I like to just discuss the different things that scientists do.  

 

 In this project, students sort the animals into the correct animal group.

Students sort and glue food into the correct food groups.

Students love this project!  

They choose one food from each food group to put in a lunch box, or on a school lunch tray.

Here are some ideas for the projects that require writing.  

 

  

In this project, students can describe what each step means.  

Another way to use this project, is to do an experiment, and write specifically about that experiment.

 

 

There is a season project for all four seasons.

 

There are 14 different scientists projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are 9 different habitat projects.

I hope this helps give ideas of what can be written for the projects. 

If you would like to check out the Science Notebook in my TPT store, you can click here.

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