MY FAVORITE EARTH DAY IDEAS

Oh, sweet Spring Break.  It has been such fun.  (Wasn't I just writing about telling this week of freedom, "Hello??")  I'm not complaining though . . . it was a wonderful run for the Dollings.  

With school resuming tomorrow, I figured it was time to blog about something useful. Our crew will be headed into a week of baseball . . . followed by Earth Day and Ponds. As I am getting my ducks in a row for the next few weeks, I might as well toss out a few of my favorite activities for you to take a peek at and maybe incorporate into your plans.  Don't worry. I'm not going to hit you with things you HAVE TO DO this next week.  I'll hook you up with with my Earth Day thoughts to give you a little time to prep.

RECYCLED WORK

This one is easy and requires NO extra prep.  During our Earth Day studies, I like to copy as much work as possible on scrap or recycled paper.  The kids get a kick out of completing work with random assignments on the flip side.  I just dig in the copy room recycle bin or snag papers that I ran and NEVER ended up getting to in class :)

DRAW & SOLVE MINI BOOK

Speaking of running assignments on recycled paper, here's a math activity that lends itself to this idea.  We are all about working on word problems as much as possible this year.  These higher level thinking skills are essential to the CORE and we need more practice.  With this said, I created a story problem booklet for my kiddos.  I designed it to target Operations & Algebraic Thinking (OA) for both first and second grade.  Oh, and it's FREE!  I figured I might as well hook you up too :)  This freebie includes multiple pages of story problems targeting different skills.  Simply pick and choose the pages your crew is ready to tackle at this time and create a customized word problem book . . . on recycled paper. CLICK HERE to snag this freebie!

AN ADORABLE ART PROJECT

My favorite Earth Day art project comes from Across the Hall in 2nd Grade.  I have been doing this one since the packet came out. It comes with a writing piece too . . . swoon :)

CLICK HERE to check out her packet :)

UNIQUE ACTIVITIES

Sarah Cooley outdid her self in the unique activities department.  Her We Heart Our Earth packet provides numerous real world lessons that the kids absolutely adore.  From creating a Litterbug Museum and adopting trees to sorting recyclable products, this collection is the real deal!

MEANINGFUL WRITING

Earth Day offers up oodles of ways for students to produce some wonderful reflective writing.  Here's an activity that I came up with 3 years ago.  It requires a bit of prep (you have to trim the pictures), but the parents always eat this one up.  The kids always dig working with real photos too :)

This activity is part of one of my favorite packets -- EARTH DAY (Dolling comes up with such unique titles).  It contains all sorts of engaging standards-based activities for primary kiddos.  This collection even includes a sweet little Earth Day song from Ron Brown's Intelli-Tunes (MP3 & lyrics embedded in the download).

Alright, there you have it . . . a post showcasing all of my favorite Earth Day goods.  It's enough to jam-pack a week or more with super awesome activities for your babes.  I hope some of this helped with your planning a bit.  On that note, I am out of here.  Gotta get the rest of my baseball stuff prepped and work on planning feel-good activities for our upcoming testing week.  (I'll be back soon to tell you all about this idea.)  Big hugs and MERRY SUNDAY!!