Make an Earth Day art project
This is a fun Earth Day art activity for children and is a good follow up for the endangered plant and animal activities on the previous page.
Start the project by reading books to that increase children's awareness of the important relationship between plants and animals.
Wolf Island is a perfect book to help students understand the delicate balance of an ecosystem.
Pressed Weeds Earth Day Art
The children collected weeds such as buttercup and bits of dried plants, pressed and dried them in a stack of old phone books. They used the plants to make bright and colorful Earth Day Art to remind them of their ability to change their world.
Materials:
- Weed flowers, leaves or dried weeds
- Old phone books or catalogues for pressing plants
- Photocopy lid for dried plants
- Paper towels
- White cartridge paper 12" x 18"
- Bright poster paints
- White liquid glue
Prior to beginning the project talk about which plants to pick, show pictures of buttercups, dandelions and other plants around your school or home that the children can use for their pictures. Make sure they know any boundaries if there are areas where they shouldn't pick plants, and how to take just a few flowers and leaves from each plant.
Part One - gathering and drying the plants
- Take children outside and have all children gather weeds and dried plants. Place plants in one container..
- Have children work in centers and take turns placing plants on top of paper towels in an open page of an old phone book.
- Put another piece of paper towel on top.
- Close the books and put them aside for a week or two.
Part Two - painting the pictures
- Talk to the children about the Earth Day activities they have been participating in and what they could paint to demonstrate those events.
- Paint a few sample pictures, keeping them big and bold.
- Children put names on the back of their papers.
- Have children paint on a flat surface, using limited colors and bright thick poster paints.
- Notice in the sample the colors were limited to red, yellow, green and black.
- Let pictures dry and then put aside.
Part Three - removing the dried materials
- Bring out the phone books or catalogues and once again during a center time, have children carefully take turns removing the dried plants. Demonstrate first.
- A lid from a photocopy paper box is just right for spreading the dried plants in.
Part Four - gluing the dried weeds on the picture
- Distribute the paintings to the first group of kids at center time.
- Give each group a portion of the dried plants.
- Have students take turns gluing 5 or 6 plant items on their pictures with white liquid glue.
- Let dry
- Have each child print a sentence about their Earth Day participation (or help them do so) and glue the sentence on the picture.
- Display the picture on a colorful background.
More environmental art activities here...
Good Earth Art: Environmental Art for Kids (Bright Ideas for Learning)
Teacher Resources for Environmental Education
Environmental education pages:
Environmental education activities skills list
Environmental science
Free science worksheets
Green kids and Earth Day
What is Earth Day about?
Leaf rubbing planet Earth - art activity
Pressed plants art activity
Easter Science Activity
Outdoor ed. degree
Recycling for kids - Part 1
Recyling for kids - Part 2
Science books for children
Tree Seedling Experiments
Year long environmental activity ideas
Earth Day toys and resources
In Social Studies Section:
The Food Chain
