5 Earth Day Celebration Ideas For Your Child Care Center 

Earth Day was established in 1970 to provide a voice for environmental causes, to educate the general public on the effects of pollution and inspire individuals to build a cleaner world. 

Since that time, Earth Day has grown into a global event. According to the Earth Day Network, 1 billion people in 192 countries around the world, participate in Earth Day festivities.

We have five ways for your child care center to celebrate. Let’s dive in! 

1. Plant a Garden 

Gardening is a fantastic Earth Day activity. 

It will give you an excuse to take your kids outside and teach them about the natural world. And it will give your kids the chance to appreciate nature and participate in it. 

Swing by any store with a gardening section and purchase a few packs of seeds. If you don’t already have them at home, consider buying hand trowels and pruning shears, too. (Just don’t let your young children handle them!) Then round up your kiddos, take them to a sunny spot in the yard and start planting. 

What if you run a small, in-home daycare without access to a gardening space? Get a few planter boxes and put them on the back porch. 

If you’re really tight on space, consider buying a window sill planter box and growing a small selection of herbs and/or flowers in it.

2. Make a Paper Plate Weaving 

Check out this craft that help strengthen kid’s fine motor skills from Pre-K Pages:

1. Gather paper plates, blue and green yarn and a pair of scissors. 

2. Make small cuts around the edges of your paper plate. Each cut should be ¼ to ½ inches deep and be spaced about ½ to 1 inch apart from each other. 

3. Take blue yarn and string it across your plate in a star pattern. This is the framework for your paper plate weave. Once it’s done, let your kids go crazy. 

4. Tell your kids to weave the blue and green yarn up and over the framework you just created. The goal is to make a design that resembles the earth. 

5. To switch between blue and green yarns, simply tie the end of one to the other for your kids. Then let them continue weaving until their little hearts are content. 

6. When your daycare kids are done with this craft, hang them up for all to see. 

3: ‘Grow’ Egg Carton Trees 

Here’s a simple craft from Glued to My Crafts that also upcycles a few materials you already have around the house:

1. Gather multiple egg cartons, white pieces of paper, green and brown paint, multiple paint brushes, a pair of scissors and a hot glue gun. 

2. Cut out each individual section of your egg cartons. Then give them to your kids so that they can paint them green. Allow the painted egg carton sections to dry. 

3. Give each of your kids a white piece of paper and brown paint. Ask them to paint a tree trunk on their piece of paper that’s about half a page tall. 

4. Hot glue the green egg carton pieces to the white piece of paper, right above the painted tree trunk. Discard any egg carton pieces that you don’t use. 

5. Display your egg carton tree creations around your child care center. 

4. Play a Recycling Game 

Recycling is an important part of Earth Day. So why not teach your kids about this activity via a fun game? All you have to do is round up a bunch of materials such as: 

• toilet paper rolls 
• bottles and cans 
• cardboard boxes 
• newspapers 
• food 
• shoes and clothing 

Next, put all of the materials in the center of the room. Then go through them, one by one, and teach your kids which items can be recycled and which can’t. 

If you care for older kids, you can turn the lesson into a fun competition to see who can accurately sort the materials the fastest. And if you really want to kick things up a notch, combine this recycling game with a classic scavenger hunt. 

First, kids have to find specific recyclable materials around your child care center. Then they have to sort them into the appropriate bins. The person or team who does it the fastest wins. 

5. Sing an Earth Day Song 

Last, but certainly not least, try singing an Earth Day-themed song during sing-along time. 

Here’s one written by Vanessa Levin, and sung to the tune of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow:”

“Reduce, reuse, recycle 

Reduce, reuse, recycle 

Reduce, reuse, recycle 

Let’s all do our part! 

Bottles, cans, and bags 

Bottles, cans, and bags 

Reduce, reuse, recycle 

Reduce, reuse, recycle 

Reduce, reuse, recycle 

Let’s all do our part!” 

Or you can write your own Earth Day-themed song. Choose a well-known melody, then string a few words together about recycling, nature or any other Earth Day topic. Voila, you’ve just written the next classroom hit. 

Include Parents With the Procare Child Care Mobile App!

Earth Day encourages finding ways for kids to spend time outside, learn about nature and enjoy new things they’ve never experienced before. 

And make sure parents can see what great lessons and activities you’re doing throughout the day with their kids with the Procare child care mobile app! It has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times and is a great way to save paper … a fitting way to celebrate Earth Day!

With a fully integrated and complete parent engagement solution that also includes classroom management, the child care mobile app allows parents to be immersed in their children’s day-to-day activities – that includes tracking developmental milestones, sharing photos and videos as well as enabling two-way communication.

It saves child care programs time and money by streamlining core administrative functions while raising the bar for the parent experience with professional communications, easy-to-access portals and the ability for real-time updates from the classroom.

You can keep parents involved by showing them their children’s day-to-day activities, sharing milestones in real time and helping them reinforce what is taught in the classroom by providing insight into their curriculum and learning objectives.

Plus, you can use the app for easy, two-way communication and keep parents engaged with calendars to promote upcoming events.

Wondering how could the Procare child care mobile app could help your early childhood education program?

Download the free “7 Reasons Why a Child Care Mobile App will Help Streamline Operations and Communication at Your Center or School” infographic to learn what this app can do for your child care business or request a demo today!