Mother Earth Day
Sue Wickstead is a children’s author and writes children’s picture books. Sue writes books based on a real bus.
The Playbus was a recycled bus which offered play and craft opportunities for its many young visitors. Today we are going to be learning about Mother Earth and how we can look after her.
9.30am Activity:
Paper Plate Planet
Using a paper plate, make a model of planet Eartth where we live.
On the flat side draw or create a collage of your home.
Turn the plate over and on the rounded back paint the blue sea.
When dry, use a sponge to add the green for the land or continents as they are known.
(Older children might be able to focus on the shapes.
Grown Ups:
Look at a map or globe and identify the features of our world. Show your child where you live on the globe. Also point out other countries of interest to your family.
Help your child to add a picture of their home, a photograph drawing or collage. Then encourage them to paint the planet. You could ask questions such as - .
What is your home like? Where do you live?
Create a picture of their home.
Write words about their home. (or talk about where they live)
This activity supports letter recognition and their creativity.
10.30am Activity:
Make a Poster
Make a Poster about looking after our world.
Grown Ups:
Discus ideas with your child about ways we could help our planet.
Using your child’s ideas make a simple poster and decorate it.
Perhaps they could trace over the words that you have written for them. Help them to add decorations if they wish.
This activity supports language and communication development. It lets them express their knowledge and understanding.
1:30pm Activity:
Mother Earth Collage
Take a walk outside and collect natural objects such as sticks and leaves.
What will you choose and why?
How can we create a collage?
Grown Ups:
Help the children to make a collage.
Encourage them to weave their collection of items to create a picture or pattern.
This activity helps develop your child’s fine motor skills as well as hand eye co-ordination. It also helps language and communication development and creative expression.
Remind your children about washing their hands after collecting their collage materials.
2:30pm Activity:
'What a Wonderful World' Song
We certainly live in a wonderful world and need to take care of Mother Earth.
Grown Ups:
Help the children to learn the song and to add simple actions to the song.
Extension: Perform the song with actions.
This activity helps develop your child’s language and communication, memory and performance skills.
If you've finished these and still have time for fun...
If you have finished all of these activities and still have time for fun you might like to try these..
How can we keep our world tidy?
Compare story books and information books too.
What other ways could you use your nature collections?
Story time:
We Should Recycle and Tidy Our World.
Listen to the story of David and how he took on the task of bin man.
We should tidy up after ourselves.
Grown Ups
Ask questions about the story and the things David got up to.
Have they ever watched the bin man empty their rubbish bin?
