We know how much kindergarteners love holidays! We can almost feel the excitement in the room as the calendar inches closer to holidays like Halloween or Christmas. However, there are other holidays that our young kindergarten students likely haven’t heard of before. Earth Day is one of these important holidays! I’ve put together a list of ideas for a kindergarten Earth Day lesson plan to help you introduce this holiday to your class.

What is Earth Day?
Earth Day is celebrated every year on April 22nd to raise awareness and support for environmental protection. Our country began observing Earth Day in 1970, but it became an internationally-recognized holiday in 1990.
Celebrating Earth Day is a great way to address science standards that are centered on earth and human activity. It’s important for students to learn more about the impact that humans have on the environment.
Ideas for a Kindergarten Earth Day Lesson Plan
These ideas are meant to be engaging and informative for students while helping them practice other concepts in the kindergarten curriculum. You’ll be able to spend the day learning about the planet while addressing important academic skills.
1. Learn About Earth Day
Since Earth Day is likely a new holiday for most of your kindergarten students, it’s a good idea to take some time to introduce this special day to your class. You can use a combination of classroom discussion, websites, videos, music, and hands-on activities to help your students learn more about Earth Day.
This video from Homeschool Pop is a great introduction to Earth Day. Students can learn about when and why we observe Earth Day.
SciShow Kids made this engaging Earth Day video to explain the different ways that we can help the environment.
You can also share Blippi’s Earth Day Song with your class, which is focused on why we need to respect the planet.
As part of your classroom discussion about the importance of helping the environment, your class can brainstorm things that you could do to help the planet for Earth Day. This could be picking up trash around the school campus, sorting recyclables, making bird feeders, or even planting flowers for pollinators. You could have a few Earth-friendly activities on hand for your class to do together.
2. Read About Earth Day
You can help your students continue to process what they’re learning about Earth Day through nonfiction text. When students read passages about Earth Day, they are given even more exposure to the new vocabulary and concepts.
You can use this printable nonfiction book to help your students read more about helping the planet. Depending on your class, this could be used as a whole-group read aloud or during small group instruction. This printable book is also nice because each student can take home a copy, giving them another chance to practice the new vocabulary.
3. Write About Earth Day
After reading nonfiction text, you can have your students practice their writing skills with an Earth Day twist. Giving your students a chance to write in different formats is a helpful way to keep young writers motivated!
The first format you could use for writing practice is a graphic organizer. Students can use a combination of drawing and writing to document three facts about Earth Day. This is a great way for students to summarize what they’ve learned and practice composing informative text.
A chart is another format that your students can use for writing practice. This know/learned chart can help students document what they already know about Earth Day along with the new facts they are learning. With plenty of space on this chart, students can combine their writing with drawing in order to share their thoughts.
Finally, it’s important for young writers to practice writing their thoughts in sentence form. You can make this more motivating and engaging by giving them space to illustrate their sentences. For their Earth Day writing, students can write about how they helped the planet as part of the classroom celebration.
4. Earth Day Craft
Finally, be sure to add a craft to your Earth Day lesson plans! Crafts are an excellent way to help students strengthen their fine motor skills and practice following multi-step directions.
This easy-to-prep Earth Day craft serves as a great reminder of everything the students have learned about helping the planet. The heart reminds them to show love for the earth by taking good care of it.
You can pair this craft with a writing activity for even more fine motor practice. You can have your students write about how they can help the Earth and then illustrate their writing. The finished craft and writing make a great spring bulletin board!
Students are always so excited to see their completed work on display. Sharing their work with the rest of the school helps young students feel like the writers they are. When students feel like writers, they are more motivated to keep writing!
I hope that these activities have given you some inspiration for your lesson plans!
Printable Earth Day Activities for Kindergarten
Would you like to celebrate Earth Day with your kindergarteners this year? I can save you some planning time! I’ve put together a resource with several engaging activities that you can add to your kindergarten Earth Day lesson plan. You can find all of the printable activities pictured in this post (and more!) in this low-prep resource. It’s everything you need to put together a meaningful Earth Day mini-unit for your kindergarten class.
These engaging activities will help your students learn more about why we observe Earth Day and why it’s important to take care of the planet. Just head over to my TPT store to take a closer look at everything included in this Earth Day resource.
Save These Earth Day Ideas
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! You’ll be able to quickly find these ideas when you’re setting up your kindergarten Earth Day lesson plan. Just add the pin below to your favorite Pinterest board of classroom ideas!