Happy Earth Day! Around here, we’ve been super busy celebrating God’s beautiful creation and learning creative ways to care for the earth. Little’s idea of Earth is the hanging blow-up globe we have in our homeschool room {AKA our dining room}, but he loves the idea of caring for his “balloon Earth” anyway 🙂
Unfortunately, our camera bit the dust on our trip to Los Angeles in March. Bye bye my beloved Nikon. It took a dip in the ocean at Santa Monica Beach and never recovered. Otherwise, I’d be sharing with you all lovely pictures of our exciting adventures in nature discovery. Since I don’t have current pictures to share with you all {I plan to fix this problem SOON}, I thought I’d share with you our wonderful Earth Day projects, experiments, and books. You can easily partake in these same activities in your own home, and I hope you do. Because we’re having a BLAST!
To us, Earth Day is a celebration of God’s glorious creation and a reminder that He has given US the earth to care for and tend to. I fully believe it’s our responsibility to care for the earth and do everything we can to sustain our beautiful gift from God and take care of the land He has blessed us with. If we take it for granted, it won’t thrive for long.
Butterfly Pavilion
Currently, in our homeschool, we’re celebrating God’s creation {and Earth Day} by raising butterflies! Back in March, I purchased a butterfly pavilion from Insect Lore, and Little has been enthusiastic and excited from the moment our purchase arrived.
Butterfly Life Cycle from Insect Lore
In preparation for our caterpillar larvae to arrive {which are ordered separately for $5}, I also ordered toy models of the butterfly life cycle and something super neat called Seed Bombs from Amazon. We’ve played with our life cycle model toys for the past month, and I’m one proud parent when I hear Little explain the butterfly life cycle. It makes this mama’s heart proud to hear him say, “The callerpillar goes to the chrysalis and then he changes and wiggles and comes out a bubberfly!”
The Seed Bombs are seed mixture pods that are thrown on your lawn, watered, and in a few days or weeks, they sprout a variety of flowers. The variety we purchased specifically attract butterflies. Ideally, when we release our fully grown butterflies, they’ll hang around in our yard for a while because of these beautiful flowers!
Book List
In honor of Earth Day, we’re currently enjoying the following titles:
The Earth Book by Todd Parr
I love Todd Parr’s books. He has vibrantly illustrated books that look like they could have been crafted from the hands of children. This book shows simple ways that children could help care for the earth and Little has always loved these illustrations. He’s on board with the messages shared in the book too. It’s a very simple read and could easily be shared with your early reader.
Little Critter: It’s Earth Day! by Mercer Mayer
I. Love. Little Critter. I seriously LOVE these characters SO much. My favorite is I Was So Mad simply because I adore the “angry” faces of the Little Critter. They remind me of my baby brother when he was little {he’s now in his 20’s! Say it isn’t so!} Mostly I just adore anything by Mercer Mayer. This book is beautifully illustrated in typical Mayer fashion, and gives children encouragement for caring for the earthly home God has blessed us with. I love it for littles because of the easily recognizable characters and positive childhood themes.
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Long before environmentalism was a thing and Al Gore won an Oscar, The Lorax taught children about care of our earth through a beautiful story in the way only Dr. Seuss could. The Lorax was one of my absolute favorite books as a child. My mother can attest to being forced to re-read this book countless times. When I would go camping with my grandparents in the mountains of New Mexico, their strangely artistic and imaginative granddaughter could be found whispering to a tree stump in the hopes that the Lorax himself might dwell there. This book is a must-have for anyone interested in teaching children about the care of the earth. I loved this book as a child and now love sharing this book with my child.
Happy Earth Day!
I hope you have some wonderful activities going on for Earth Day! There are so many great books out there for kiddos that celebrate the earth and teach kids creative ways to care for it. This earth day, we’ll be raising butterflies, growing flowers, and enjoying TONS of nature-centered arts and crafts. Let me know what you have going on this Earth Day 🙂
Blessings,
Kat
Love Makes A Family {by mommyponders} 