Earth Day rolls around once a year in April to celebrate the planet we all share. Earth Day gives everyone an opportunity to enjoy the diverse world we call home and take proactive steps to protect her for the future. Teach your children, the adults of the future, how to be good stewards by introducing Earth Day games.
Concepts
Earth Day presents a number of learning opportunities. Your Earth Day games can take their inspiration from any of these ideas. Geography and biology are great introductory subjects. You can toss an inflatable ball around the room, pointing to countries, lands and seas as it goes from student to student. Recycling, sustainable living, gardening, farming and other topics may come up as well.
Ages
Younger kids will need to learn about the world as a whole. Show them the globe and play tossing games, as you talk about it spinning and moving. You can also bring them outdoors and play racing games to show them how to recycle and place trash in cans, rather than the ground. Older kids are better prepared for global issues, such as global warming and clean water. Give them a trivia game to test their skills.
Equipment
You may find inflatable globes, like beach balls, at local toy or party stores. These are perfect for relay games and guessing games. Get some trash cans and recycling cans in different colors so kids can practice racing to the cans and dumping their rubbish. Have trash of various types, from glass and plastic to paper and metal, available for organizing and dumping. Avoid letting anyone interact with sharp or broken metal or glass.
Competition
You can turn Earth Day into a day-long tournament to see who can be the most environmentally savvy. Print or write up a chart before Earth Day begins. On one axis of the chart, write each child’s or participant’s name. On the other axis, write a number of environmentally healthy activities, such as turning off the lights or taking a shower of less than five minutes. Give each person a star for each activity. The winner is the person with the most stars at the end of the day.
Prizes
Now is a great time to reinforce the importance of taking care of the Earth. Hand out seeds or small plants for kids to start their own gardens. Play globes are great, but be careful about handing out items that might quickly end up in the trash.
Photo Credit
- Garden Tools bunch image by Pink Lion from Fotolia.com
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