Free Earth Day Printables And Activities for the Classroom

If you’re anything like me, your day is packed full of reading and math – without much time to learn about holidays. But we should all take at least a few minutes to teach our students about Earth Day. It’s so important for kids to know how to take care of the Earth, both for themselves and future generations.

To help you out, I’ve compiled a few free Earth Day printables and activities that you can include in your lesson plans.

Free Earth Day Printables

These fun Earth Day worksheets and printable activities are an easy way to work this holiday into your day.

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Earth Day Word Search

A word search is a great way to incorporate important vocabulary words into your day and is simple enough for young children (first grade to second grade). It can be used in your reading centers because it involves literacy skills – building vocabulary and spelling.

⏬ Download this easy Earth Day word search puzzle from the Free Resource Library.

Or grab a whole year’s worth of holiday word searches in the shop: Holiday and Seasonal Word Search Puzzles

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Earth Day Mini Book

This cute little book about planet Earth and taking care of it is a simple way to build environmental awareness in your young learners. It is written for beginning readers with simple text and sight words. They can also color the pictures.

⏬ Click the image below to get this free mini book from the Free Resource Library:

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Earth Day Coloring Pages

There are so many of these free Earth Day printables available online that I’m just going to link to a few that have a lot of options to choose from. Download a free coloring page for a quick time filler activity:

• 10 Free Earth Day Coloring Pages for Kids
• Free Earth Day Coloring Pages – Coloringhome

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Earth Day Posters

This is a pair of printable posters that remind students to recycle and take care of their trash. These are great for upper elementary or even your teacher workroom.

⏬ Get them in the Free Resource Library.

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Other Fun Earth Day Activities

Here are a few more Earth Day ideas that don’t require a printer. These activities are a bit more in-depth and great for really teaching students the importance of caring for the Earth.

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Earth Day Scavenger Hunt

This is a quick and easy activity you can do during recess. Make a list of items that are often found on the playground that shouldn’t be there – pencils, erasers, candy wrappers, water bottles, paper, etc. Write the list on your board.

When you get outside, set a timer for 2 minutes. Have your class scour the playground for any items that were on your list and bring them to you. (I suggest bringing a plastic grocery bag outside with you to hold their “treasures”.) When you go back inside, tally up how many items they found that were on the list. As a reward, give them extra recess minutes for however many items they found!

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Acrostic Poem Posters

The only thing your students need for this activity is a pencil and piece of paper.

First, have them select a word to work off of. I give my students two words to choose from to make it easy: EARTH or CLEAN. Then I let them partner up with someone else who chose the same word. I give each pair a BIG sheet of paper and they get to work writing their acrostic poem. We also get out markers and crayons so they can decorate their poem poster.

My students always have a great time with this one! If you have hallway space available, you can hang their finished masterpieces in the hall for everyone to admire.

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Earth Day Pledge

Most kids really do have caring hearts and want to do good in the world. Tap into this by having your class come up with their own Earth Day pledge. This is a quick little activity you can do at the end of the day to wrap up your Earth Day activities.

First, brainstorm a bunch of ways to help protect the Earth. Ask students what they can do to help. Then have them contribute their own ideas and words to develop a pledge. Write it on your board and read it all together.

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Classroom Recycling Center

This one requires a little more time and planning but is a super fun way to get kids thinking about how to take care of our earth by recycling and reusing.

First, give each child a bag to take home (paper lunch sack or plastic grocery bag will do). Tell them to fill it with any recyclable CLEAN trash they can find such as toilet paper tubes, bits of string, empty Pringles cans, plastic caps, cardboard, egg cartons, etc. Just make sure they don’t bring in anything dirty or unwashed.

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Once they all return with their bags of items, put it all into one big box labeled “Recycling Center”. Now it’s time to get creative! Get out your glue and markers and let your students become trash artists.

The goal is for them to use items from the recycling center in the most creative way possible to make something amazing. It can be a piece of art or an “invention” of some sort.

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This is a fun activity for students of all ages! If there is any leftover “junk” when you’re done, it can be saved or passed on to another teacher to be used for stem challenges.

I hope some of these Earth Day printables and ideas inspire you and your students to take care of our planet this April 22nd and every day.