10 Earth Day Crafts for Kids – Inspire Your Kids to Make a Difference

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How awesome is it to inspire our children! We inspire them to care for others, to be confident in themselves, and try their hardest. We can inspire them every day to do so much.

With Earth Day coming up, now is the time to inspire our children to make a difference. What better way than with some Earth Day crafts for kids!

You focus so much on setting the foundation for your child to be the best person they can be. April 22nd is a special time to focus on the foundation for understanding how to keep our planet healthy. This time of teaching is important, but can also be so much fun! To enjoy teaching your children about earth day, here are 10 crafts.

Why Do We Have Earth Day?

Earth Day was first created in the US to bring awareness to the importance of environmental health. It has since spread to be a global event always celebrated on April 22nd. We use this day to reflect on our choices and how we can make better ones to help our planet.

How Do You Explain Earth Day to a Child?

Explaining Earth Day to your child can be easy. You can simply explain to your child that just like we keep our body healthy with exercise and healthy food, it is important to keep our planet healthy. Point out bad examples like littering and great examples like recycling.

To help your child better understand all they can do to make a difference, do some fun Earth Day activities. Here I have listed 10 activities you can do with your kids to celebrate Earth Day. These activities will help set the foundation for understanding the importance of environmental health.

Earth Day Crafts for Kids

1. Magazine Earth

Make a super easy and cute Earth collage with some cardboard/poster board, glue, and magazines. This is how we did it –

1. Cut out a circle from a cardboard box or poster board. We had a poster board laying around, so we used that.
2. Sketch the earth – it doesn’t have to be perfect!
3. Cut out blue and green pages from a magazine.
4. Glue down the green (land) pieces.
5. Glue down the blue (water) pieces.
6. Place a marker where you live – we chose to use a star sticker.

2. Nature Scavenger Hunt

Enjoy our beautiful world by spending some time outside and go on a nature scavenger hunt. We chose to hunt by color and this is how we did it –

1. Get an egg carton.
2. Paint each spot a different color.
3. See if you can find a different item for each color.
4. Spend time studying what you found.

3. Bug Hotel

Make a little hotel for all those creepy crawlies you have in your backyard. This is a great craft that you can keep for a long time. It is an easy way for the kiddos to study what bugs come and stay at your bug hotel. This is how we did it –

1. Get a 2-liter (or as many as you want) and cut the ends off.
2. Pack the 2-liter tightly with sticks, leaves, soil, grass, flowers, pinecones, etc..
3. You can choose to hang up your bug hotel with twine. We decided to place it on the porch for easy viewing.

4. Paper Flowers

I don’t know about you, but we get A LOT of magazines. I promise I didn’t sign up for all of them (or maybe I did). Regardless, we have plenty for craft projects. These were perfect for our craft flowers and here is how we did it –

1. Find the perfect color for your flower and cut out the leaves. 4 larger ones for the flower and 2 smaller ones for your stem. We chose to cut heart shapes.
2. Get a popsicle stick. We chose to paint our popsicle stick green for a stem.
3. Attach your first leaf to the popsicle stick.
4. Continue layering and gluing the other leaves.
5. Add a pom-pom to the center.
6. Add leaves to your stem.

5. Water Bottle Planters

Make use of all those water bottles and plant something beautiful. We decided to plant lavender and used this tutorial from The Good Life Designs to do it. Here is what we did –

1. Wash the bottle and cut it in half.
2. Hammer or drill a hole in the lid.
3. Cut a piece of yarn and thread it through the hole. Tie a knot to keep it in place.
4. Screw the lid back onto the bottle.
5. Place small rocks or pebbles in the bottom half of the bottle and fill with some water.
6. Put the top half of the water bottle upside down in the bottom half and fill with soil and your choice of seeds.
7. Water your plant to get it started.
8. Watch your plant grow and make sure there is always water in the bottom as you need the yarn to remain wet to water the plant.

6. DIY Recycling Bin

Unfortunately, we live in an area when there are not designated recycle bins to be picked up on trash day, therefore we decided to make our own. Here is how we did it –

1. Get any box you have laying around.
2. Fold-out the edges and secure them to the sides with tape for easy use.
3. Decorate as you want and remember to add the recycle symbol.
4. Determine the best place to put your recycle bin and talk about what items will go in it.

7. Save the Earth Superhero

There are numerous crafts you can do with paper bags, and we always have them around the house. We decided to make a superhero whose mission was to save the Earth. This is how we did it –

1. Color the front, but leave room for your superhero symbol.
2. Cut out a cape and glue it to the back.
3. Cut out a mask and glue it to the front.
4. Add a smile and googly eyes.
5. Add your superhero symbol, we went with the Earth of course.

8. Jellyfish

How many plastic bags do you have at your home? We have tons from grocery shopping! We often reuse them for various reasons, but who knew they could turn into jellyfish. You can make your own jellyfish by following this tutorial from PBS –

1. Cut off the handle and bottom part. Cut both sides. This makes 2 plastic sheets (you will only need one).
2. Pinch the center of one of the sheets and make a small ball (this will be the head).
3. Tie it with a tread, but not too tight as you will need to fill it with water.
4. Make the tentacles by cutting strips from the bottom toward the head. Make 8-10 cuts.
5. For each tentacle, cut 3 smaller lines.
6. Trim tentacles. to make some longer and some shorter.
7. Pour some water into the head (this allows it to sink, but leave some air inside so it can float).
8. Fill up your water bottle and drop in your jellyfish. Add some blue food coloring.
9. Make sure the lid is screwed on tight and let your kiddo play.

9. Flower Pot and Plant

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than by planting something brand new. Here is what we did –

1. Decorate a new flower pot or make your own.
2. Choose what you want to plant – we decided to plant wildflowers.

10. Teach Recycle vs Trash

Does your child fully understand what goes in the recycle bin and what goes in the trash? I’ll be honest and say my son doesn’t have a clue! We spent some time learning about proper waste management and this is how –

1. Get a paper towel roll and cut it in half.
2. Decorate one for trash and one for recycling.
3. Download a print the Trash or Recycle printable.
4. Cut out the items and sort what is trash and what should be recycled.

Finish Off the celebration

Earth Day isn’t a day that should be forgotten. It is a day we should take advantage of and teach our children how they can make a difference in their world. I hope at least one of these activities is perfect for your family and I encourage you to finish off the day with some dirt cup pudding for dessert. My husband makes the best!

Leave a comment sharing your favorite Earth Day activity and how you plan to celebrate with your kids this year.