Earth Day provides great opportunities for writing and social studies lessons in an upper elementary classroom. Read-alouds, writing activities, and this DIY planting activity and craft make for the perfect lesson!
I start by reading the book, Just a Dream with my students. It really gets them thinking about ways we impact our earth and how we can make a change. We discuss the story and talk about how we can make a better earth for ourselves and everyone around in the future.
After discussing the story we make our own seed pots! The students love showing their creativity with this activity. First, I give everyone their own DIY seed pot. These are the PERFECT size for an activity like this in your classroom. I then pass out to each group of students some washable paint and round daubers (these are GREAT for a mess-free paint experience!), self-adhesive daisies, glitter mosaic squares, and some mini bright tissue paper squares. I think my students love the tissue squares the best. Some students glue them on like paper mache and others get creative with the way they decorate their seed pot!
After they are finished decorating their pot and it is drying, I have my students complete some writing pages. Our favorite writing page is, "Describe Your Ideal Earth". They can then illustrate it when they're finished writing. This is a great, quick assessment on the lesson as well as a writing quick check! These writing pages can be found here.
When the pots are dry and all my students have finished their writing, I give their pots some soil and let them pick out seeds to take home! This really brings the lesson to a close and they get excited to do something good for the earth and environment.
Looking for Earth Day decor? See how I made an Earth Day themed bulletin board here.