6 Fun Earth Day 2020 Activities for Kids

Staying home with kids can be fun.  We bet after a few weeks of unplanned confinement, you have doubts. 

You are stuck at home with your active and inquisitive two (three, four, five, six, take your pick)-year-old or  (oh, no!) a few of them. The ideas of fun things to do are running out at the speed of light.  Is it time to panic?

Not at all! With Earth Day coming up, we've created a list of fun activities to help you take the mandatory isolation in stride. Your kids will love every minute, helping you relax along the way.

1. Fighting Plastic Waste: Sewing a Tote Bag

• Good for kids: 4 -6 years old

• Time: 2 – 3 hours

Bright and colorful tote bags are always in demand. Your kids will love making something on their own and using it to save the planet. Thankfully, the process is fairly easy. All you need is fabric, canvas straps, and some patience.

While it's nice to have a sewing machine to complete this project, you can do it by hand. Uneven stitches made by little hands will make your new tote bag sweet and unique.

Does your 5-year-old have younger brothers and sisters? They can pitch in by taking a couple of markers and drawing exclusive patterns on the bag.

We loved this bag-sewing tutorial.

An interesting fact to share: Every second 160,000 plastic bags are used around the planet.

2. Saving the Birds: Building a Bird Feeder

• Good for kids: 2 -12 years old

• Time: 1 – 2 hours

Building a bird feeder is always fun. While the activity can give your children new and exciting skills, it also has hidden potential. Your children will love putting food into the feeder and watching birds take full advantage of their creation.

Depending on how old your kid is, you can choose the type of bird feeder to build. While wooden birdhouses are the best, not all parents possess the skills (maybe it's time to learn?) or tools to build them. So we suggest taking an easy way out.

Since it's Earth Day, consider creating feeders out of recycled materials. Plastic bottles or empty milk cartons work just fine.

An interesting fact to share: When it comes to bird feeders, squirrels are birds' worst enemies. So you should squirrel-proof the feeder by placing it at least five feet away from the tree.

3. Exploring Ocean Contamination: Oil Spill Cleanup

• Good for kids: 3 - 12 years old

• Time: 1 – 2 hours

Earth Day is an excellent opportunity to teach your kids about oil spills. While you are explaining the dangers of oil spills, you can create a little cleanup experiment. You'll need:

• Vegetable oil

• Detergent

• Water

• Spoon

• Cloth pads

• Pan

• Rock

• Bird feathers (if you don't have any, you can just use a piece of cloth shaped like a feather)

We've found an excellent video experiment to help teach your kids all about oil spills and how hard they are to clean up.

An interesting fact to share: The largest oil spill to date occurred in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico.

4. Being Waste Conscious: Making Recycling Bins

• Good for kids: 1 - 7 years old

• Time: 1 – 2 hours

Waste sorting is one of the easiest ways children of all ages can help take care of our planet. Even if you already have different bins for paper, plastic, glass, and organic waste, your children can make a couple of them for their rooms.

While organic waste should stay in the kitchen, your kids can create personal bins for paper and plastic. All you need is a couple of old cardboard boxes and crayons. Let them decorate the boxes and write "paper" or "plastic" on them. If you don't have the boxes, you can make them!

An interesting fact to share: Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water!

5. Breathing Easier: Planting Seeds

• Good for kids: 1 - 12 years old

• Time: 1 - 3 hours

Planting seeds is always a fun activity. It's an excellent opportunity to tell your children why we should take care of plants and trees. It doesn't matter what kind of seeds you plant, kids will love the process.

You can either plant something in the backyard or extend the fun by making DIY flowerpots or decorating existing ones.

It's possible to make flowerpots out of recycled materials. You can use plastic bottles, old paint cans, tires, and even old shoes. What an excellent way to recycle the little shoes your children grew out of!

An interesting fact to share: Trees don't just help us breathe. They cut energy bills. The shade produced by trees can save up to 30% of the energy we use for air conditioning.

6. Saving Energy: Using Candles

• Good for kids: 1 - 99 years old

• Time: 1 - ∞

Earth Day is an excellent opportunity to teach your children about saving energy. Turn off all the lights in your home, light candles, and tell stories.

To make candles for the energy-saving evening, you can use the old and boring candles you have at home and give them a new life.  

You can also use this opportunity to teach children about fire safety.

An interesting fact to share: The custom of putting lit candles on the cake and making a wish dates back to ancient Greeks. They thought that smoke from a blown-out candle carried their thoughts to Gods.

Have Fun While Learning a New Language

Earth Day isn't just about saving our planet. It's also aimed at bringing people together. Closing the distance doesn't always have to be physical. You can do it by learning a new language.

At Little Pim, we focus on making learning fun. Contact us to find out about engaging, easy, and accessible programs for your children. Being stuck at home is an excellent opportunity to beef up your language skills!

Fun Earth Day Activities for Kids

Earth Day is Friday, April 22nd and we have a bunch of fun ideas on how you can celebrate with your little ones! More than a billion people around the world celebrate Earth Day and you can too! Find Earth Day events in your area on Google maps via earthday.org or enjoy one of the activities below that your kids will love:

Plant a Seed

Planting seeds with your kids is a great way to help them understand why nature is so valuable. You can simply plant a bean or marigold seed in a cup and help your children take care of their growing plant.

Seed Starting Tips:

• - Once your seed germinates, place your plant in full sun by a window or use fluorescent light
• - Keep your seedlings warm (70-75 degrees) and your soil moist
• - Choose easy-to-grow annuals (flowers such as sunflowers, zinnias, or cosmos or vegetables like radishes, lettuce, and dill)
• - Be sure to label your cups if you're planting a mix of seeds (kids can have fun with creating their own labels!)

Create a Bird Feeder

This is a fun recycling art project reusing your toilet paper rolls via The Resourceful Mama. The best part is that you only need 5 supplies to build this simple bird feeder with your little ones. Note: This project is not recommended for children who have peanut allergies.

• - Toilet paper rolls
• - Bird seed
• - Peanut Butter
• - Craft or Popsicle Sticks
• - Twine

Simply spread the peanut butter on the outside of the toilet paper rolls using the craft sticks and roll them around in the bird seed. Once the outside of the roll is covered in seeds, thread a piece of twine through the roll until your desired length and tie a knot. Hang your bird feeder outside on a tree and wait for the little birdies to enjoy!

Sing an Earth Day Song

Sometimes singing a song can help young children learn the importance of Earth Day and conserving the world's natural resources in a fun and meaningful way. The Earth Day Song by Let's Play Kids Music is a great way to get the whole family involved with song and dance. Sing the lyrics to the tune of 'Nick Nack Paddy Wack' and enjoy the playlist they put together to celebrate the Earth all day long!

Visit a Farmer's Market

Take the kids to the farmer's market or a local farm to learn about the fruits and vegetables grown in your local area. Farmers can explain to your kids about what produce is in season and where they were grown. Let your little ones pick fresh fruits and vegetables to take home to prepare an Earth Day picnic. Show them how to wash and prepare fresh produce into fun-sized bites for kids.

Earth Day Reading

Visit your local library to read books about Earth. One of our favorites is "Talking with Mother Earth" by Jorge Argueta, which is a great bilingual/bicultural read as it's beautifully expressed in English and Spanish.

Color a Tree

Do April showers have you and your little ones stuck inside today? No worries, you can print out this coloring page via ABC Teach for the kids to color in an Earth Day tree with leaves in the shape of hearts.

Join the Community

Most local communities host Earth Day events throughout the month of April to celebrate Earth Day. Be sure to visit earthday.org to find events in your area to participate in with your little ones. It's a great opportunity to help raise your global citizens and meet like-minded parents aiming to make a difference- not only on April 22nd, but year-round!

Do you have any fun ideas for Earth Day? Please comment below to share your activities! Happy Earth Day & Stay Green!

#SmartSpring Twitter Party - You're Invited!

Join us at our #SmartSpringTwitter Party to talk with our panel of moms and experts about eco-friendly family fun and creating world-opening experiences for your little ones!

DATE: Tuesday, April 29th TIME: 9pm EST HASHTAG: #SmartSpring PRIZES: A Trio Android tablet and Little Pim products galore!

RSVP to the Twitter Party by filling out this simple form.*

Make sure to follow us @LittlePim, our host Allison McDonald @Noflashcards, and our fantastic panelists @teachmama and @pragmaticmom.

And while you're at it, be sure to follow our #SmartSpring Pinterest board for educational and eco-friendly activities you can share with your kids this Spring.

See you there!

*RSVP on or before 4/28/14 at 11:59pm EST to receive an exclusive discount code to use during and after the party.

Earth Day - ideas for kids

On April 22nd, more than a billion people around the world - and millions of children - celebrated Earth Day. It's a day to think about the pressing questions that affect our planet, such as water quality and conservation, recycling, food safety and availability, and how we can each work to reduce our carbon footprint.

How can you make this day meaningful to your children? Taking on a topic like "the earth" can be pretty intimidating, so we at Little Pim have come up with our favorite ways to bring Earth Day into your home.  Here are the top ten things you can do to teach the values of Earth Day in an easy and fun way, and learning a few new words in one of the earth's many different languages!  Check out or Springtime video to learn important earth-related words in Spanish, French and Chinese.

10 Fun Ways to Celebrate Earth Day With Your Kids

1. Plant seeds with your kids, and help them take care of their growing plant. The act of watering and caring for something alive - even if it's just a plant growing in an egg carton - is a great way to help children understand why nature is so valuable.  If you have an herb plant, your child can also pick from the plant and help you cook with it, and learn the valuable link between nature and food.

2. Take your child to the local dump! Stay a while (bring wooden pegs for your noses if needed) and talk about what a landfill is.  Few children really understand where garbage goes once it leaves the trash can, or that it takes up SO MUCH ROOM.

3. Do a recycling art project. There are so many fun things you can make from tissue boxes, egg cartons and cereal boxes.  Try this piggy bank from a tissue box, this cardboard house, or these cute little bugs

4. Get your old globe out of the attic, or buy one. Preferably a child-friendly globe like this one, with fun pictures and bright colors.You can point out parts of the planet where resources are scarce, explaining water-shortages in Saharan Africa, or countries where kids farm the land from an early age, like certain places in South America.  Where possible, connect the lesson to the experiences of real kids. I love the United Nations book A Life Like Mine: How Children Live Around the World.  You can also teach your kids how to say words like "tree", "flower" or "water" using Little Pim!

5. Bake something using as many whole and non-processed ingredients as possible, and use the experience as an opportunity to explain that food can still come straight from the land!  Explain the difference between processed and whole food using real examples, such as boxed mac and cheese vs making it from scratch.

6. Visit a farmer's market together and learn about which fruit and vegetables are available in which season, and what is means to grow food locally. You can also explain that buying local food helps the planet, because it doesn't have to be transported very far.

7. Go to an Earth Day event in your city. The Natural Conservancy is hosting Picnic for the Planet events all around the world!

8. Have an Earth Day party! The kids can help you cook and you can decorate the house with Earth Day crafts

9. Go online and read about how kids are celebrating Earth Day around the world, then share some of those stories with your kids.

10. Help your child make an Earth Day drawing or story, and post it on your fridge or elsewhere in the home. You can teach them about endangered animals (pandas like Little Pim are endangered!) and print out coloring pages like this one (click to download).

And finally, happy Earth Day everyone!