As a homeschooling parent, I’m always looking for different fun ways to incorporate hands-on learning experiences for my children. April is full of so many wonderful learning opportunities for our kids. One of those opportunities is Earth Day. Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22nd, serves as a wonderful time to reflect on this wonderful Earth that God has created. Use some of these Earth Day activities to celebrate in your homeschool.
Celebrate Earth Day with these Lorax themed activities!
I’m a huge fan of Dr. Seuss books! My personal favorite is The Lorax. When I was a 6th grade teacher I used this amazing book to celebrate Earth Day and build awareness of our Earth. It lends itself to many cross-curricular activities. Now that I am a homeschool mom, I’ve continued this annual tradition with my own children and have elevated it to include themed snacks. Here are some ways to use The Lorax to celebrate Earth Day!
1. Read The Lorax with your children.
Read The Lorax with your children. Discuss the effects that the Once-ler had on the environment in the story and have the kids make some personal connections. Have a discussion about what are some things that we can do to better take care of the Earth.
2. Earth Day Lorax themed Snacks!
Create some Lorax themed Snacks! When I did this with my children they absolutely loved it and have requested for me to do it for other spacial days. To make your own Earth Day Lorax snacks you can use:
- Teddy Grahams as the brown Barbaloots
- Grapes as the Truffula fruit
- Goldfish crackers as the Humming fish
- Broccoli and cauliflower to represent the Truffula Trees
- Sunflower seeds as truffula seeds
3. Research Project
In The Lorax Dr. Seuss makes a reference to Lake Erie when he speaks of the Humming Fish leaving he says, “They’ll walk on their fins and get woefully weary in search of some water that isn’t so smeary. I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie.” Why does he make this reference in the book? Well there was a time in the 1960s-1970s when Lake Erie was heavily polluted. Efforts were made and the Clean Water Acts was passed to clean up the lake. By the 1980s Lake Erie had been cleaned up.
You can have you can have your children conduct some research about Lake Erie’s past pollution problems and how it was fixed. They then can present their findings on a poster or do a small oral presentation using flashcards, about the information they found. Here are a couple sites to get you started:
4. Watch the movie The Lorax
Watching how a book has been made into a movie is always so much fun! Take the opportunity to watch the old or new version of The Lorax. Using a Venn-diagram, have the kids compare and contrast the book to the movie. The kids will write the differences on the opposing sides and the similarities in the center of the circles. Download a free Venn-Diagram to use here! If you would like to have the kids exercise their writing skills, have them write a compare and contrast paragraph or essay using their Venn-diagram graphic organizer.
5. Write an Earth Day essay using The Lorax
Write a persuasive or problem and solution essay. Being able to present an argument or opinion and support it with evidence is very important skill. Your kids can use evidence from the story, movie, or research that they have conducted to compose a persuasive or problem and solution essay.
6. Analyze the theme of The Lorax
Analyze the theme of the story. You can just talk about it or take it up a level and write a paragraph discussing the theme of the story. Have the kids support their thoughts with evidence in the story. Some of the themes that can be discussed are:
- Greed- how it can be blinding
- Love of money is the root of all evil
- The importance of appreciating and caring for God’s creation.
- Actions have consequences.
7. Recycled art
Recycled art! You can use old boxes that you have received from packages in the mail to have you kids create something new. This could be a forte, vehicle or even a doll house! The opportunities are endless. How about those broken paper grocery bags? Instead of throwing them out try using them as art paper. You can have your children draw or paint on them. Do you have any toilet paper rolls? Those can be used to create some many great crafts. Make some Truffula trees or the Lorax. I remember there was a time when I used toilet paper rolls to create a scrapbook!
8. Plant seeds or a tree
April is such an exciting month! There are so many signs of life! The trees start budding, the flowers begin to grow, the birds start chirping and garden season begins! I don’t know abut your kids, but my kids love the dirt! The get so much enjoyment from planting seeds and watching them grow. Take this opportunity to create a butterfly or vegetable garden in your yard. If you have the ability to plant a tree on your yard o community garden, do that too. It could be a fruit tree or a tree that is a native species in your area.
9. Explore local trees
Learn about the trees that can be found in your region. Take a field trip to an arboretum or the woods, if you have access to one. You can make this into a scavenger hunt! Have the kids see how many different trees they can find. If you come across a tree that you can’t identify you can actually use a website called arborday.org that can help you identify any tree based on where you live!
10. Volunteer to clean up
I think this is probably one of the most popular Earth Day activities because we actually put taking care of our Earth into action! Volunteer to clean up in your neighborhood or a local park. Often times different communities hold a clean-up day during the springtime in preparation for the summer season. Here where we live, they typically hold a weekend where people will go out to the Presque Isle Peninsula and clean up any trash that has washed up during the winter months. This just fosters a sense of community and creates an appreciation for our surroundings.
Do you want to see what some of these activities look in action? Check out my Earth Day activities video on my YouTube Channel!
Looking for more homeschool ideas? Check out these other posts!
💖 Yessi
PS. Which one of these activities do you think you want to try? Did you already give any of these Earth Day activities a try? Go ahead and let me know which one was your favorite in the comments!
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