Earth Day falls on April 22, although activities a few days before and after that date are typical. Building on the expression, “April showers bring May flowers,” this activity brings together the themes of weather, seasons and the Earth. The free Kidzone website has water cycle worksheets that a teacher can easily turn into an age-appropriate felt board display. Four easy-to-present parts--evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection--serve as a gentle lead-in for a lesson on the importance of keeping our water clean.
Preschoolers regularly find flannel boards and music an irresistible combination. Felt cutouts and songs about recycling bring Earth Day into focus in a positive way. This sticks-with-’em lesson on the importance of recycling requires a large flannel board to display four green trash cans or bins made of felt. The bins are labeled “metal,” “plastic,” “glass” and “paper” with felt stick-on letters, available at craft stores. Clip art glued to felt works best for the recyclable items--milk cartons, pizza boxes, metal cans, glass jars--which the teacher hands out to the students as the lesson begins. The children place their recyclable items “in” the proper bin as the teacher sings “Working on Recycling,” to the tune of “I've Been Working on the Railroad,” as suggested on the free CanTeach website.
Raffi, the Canadian troubadour and voice for children for more than 30 years, sings an ideal tune for Earth Day. Using Raffi’s “Big Beautiful Planet” as the basis for a flannel board story, this activity calls for a felt-backed Earth, sun, wind, a house outline large enough to go around the Earth and a row of rainbow-colored children holding hands.
Singing the song or chanting the words as a poem, the teacher arranges first the Earth, then the house and then the rainbow children, for the first verse (which repeats thereafter as a chorus). A verse about the sun follows, then the chorus, then the wind verse and the final chorus. Depending on the age and abilities of the children, they can make their own props, waving them aloft as the teacher puts the corresponding felt pieces on the board.