St. Patrick's Day party lesson plans, crafts, activities to celebrate green

Here's a nifty unit of activities for St. Patrick's Day: lesson plans to celebrate all things green! I've tailored these lesson plans for classroom or homeschool, and ages toddler and preschool through grade 3. I've included St. Patrick's Day party activities, green themed food and snacks, games, crafts and printables. There are many earth science extensions for Earth Day too. 

Green themed snacks and food for St. Patrick's Day party: 

Make a green fruit and vegetable tasting tray. For hands-on biology science activities, explore plant parts of green veggies and fruits. Make a chart to show what plant part each comes from. Draw a large tree showing roots below the ground. The use these free printable coloring pages for fruits and vegetables to color, cut and paste pictures on the tree. 

Roots: sprouts, scallions (tops), fennel bulb

Stalk (trunk) celery, green onions, dill weed, asparagus

Leaves: lettuce, brussels sprouts
ts, kale, spring mix, arugula, spinach, cilantro, mint, watercress, 

Seeds: green beans, peas, edamame, 

Flower: Broccoli, broccoflower: flower 

Fruit: cucumber, kiwi, green grapes, green beans, zucchini, chayote squash (also called mirliton in southern states), green apples, pears, acorn squash

Students will enjoy making green lime yogurt pops by freezing yogurt in popsicle makers. Or freeze limeade or pistachio pudding. 

St. Patrick's party games: 

Play Red light/Green Light (basically stop and go). Extend with safety lesson plans. Discuss that green represents "safe" or "go" in online, cyber and traffic safety. Make traffic safety road signs to test children. Use these free printable traffic signals and road sign coloring pages. 

St. Patrick's Day green themed crafts

Discuss earth friendly ways to keep the earth green. Encourage kids to think reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose. Challenge them to make "green machines" that are both eco-friendly and green in color, from the recycle bin. 

Toddlers and preschool students will like to color these free printable spring coloring pages. Here are free printable flower coloring pages too. Be sure to print on scrap paper from the recycle bin. Use low ink settings for the most eco-friendly printing. Assemble into a poster to display. 

Have children make collages from recycled magazines of pictures of things that are green. For really earth friendly green crafts, use materials from the recycle bin. Toddler and preschool children will love finding green items in magazines. 

Plant herb seeds in recycled jar or plastic dish (holes poked in the bottom for drainage) from recycle bin. 

Earth Day green outdoor activities

Go on a nature hunt and look for spring signs of new life: nests, buds on trees, green plant shoots, flowers beginning to sprout, grass growing, baby leaves on trees. Pay special attention to things that are green. Kids should bring a nature journal where they can draw pictures of what they observe. 

Collect litter and trash for proper disposal. Be sure kids wear nitryl gloves and masks when collecting litter. Adults should collect any glass. 

Earth Day Party: Spring themed snacks, crafts, books and printables

Spring is here and what better way to celebrate than with an Earth Day story party? Here are spring and weather themed snacks and snack crafts (snacks that do double duty as crafts that kids make themselves). I've added a list of books to read for literature connections, along with free printable book PDFs where available. 

Spring flower cookies: Use refrigerated cookie dough or better yet, make better-for-you honey cookie dough (unbleached flour, honey, baking soda and light butter). Color pink or purple with grape juice. Have each child make four small balls and arrange in a square. Bake and place M&Ms in center. Read "The Tiny Seed" Eric Carle using this free printable PDF. 

Rain Goblets: Buy inexpensive rain gauges and to serve juice. Kids can practice measurement plus get a cool rain gauge to take home and use in the garden. Read "Peter Spier's Rain"

Rainbow eggs: These are made like dyed Easter eggs. Hard boil eggs (about 15 minutes). Cool and gently crackle shells but don't remove shells. Dip eggs in food coloring or (my preference) different colored juices for dye. Now remove shells to find the pretty patterns in the egg white. Reuse colored shells in a mosaic pattern to be really eco-friendly for Earth Day. Read "The Egg Tree" by Katherine Milhouse and "An Extraordinary Egg" by Leo Lionni. 

Bird's nest cupcakes: Decorate cupcakes with frosting and sprinkle dyed green coconut on top. You can use broken pretzel sticks too. Place jelly beans or Skittles in "nest" for eggs. Use these in spring science lesson plans. Read "Are You My Mother?" (P.D. Eastman). Here's a free printable PDF. 

Dirt cups: Teach kids about soil layers, gardening and spring planting with these super easy, super yummy snacks kids will love to make. Per kid, you'll need a half cup of pudding, two Oreos, a graham cracker, a handful of M&Ms (spring pastel colors look the prettiest) and some gummy worms. If you can find gummy insects, add those too! Have kids make up chocolate pudding and crush Oreos and graham cracker. In clear plastic cups layer graham cracker (sand), pudding (mud) and cookies (dirt). Then they "plant" their seeds (M&Ms) and arrange their gummy critters on top! Perfect for Earth Day! Read (of course) "Diary of a Worm." (Doreen Cronin). 

Piggies in the mud: This was my youngest son Jake's FAVORITE! It's just chocolate pudding and animal crackers. Kids will love marching their animals through the "mud." Teach them that most animal species have babies in spring. Read "Ox-Cart Man." (Donald Hall). Here's a free printable PDF. 

Butterfly sandwiches: Let kids make their favorite sandwiches. Cut in triangles. Place pointy side together to make wings. Put a baby carrot or pickle spear in the center. That's the body, that was the caterpillar. Read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." (Eric Carle) Here's a free printable PDF, plus, check out my blog post for more Very Hungry Caterpillar printables. 

Free printable spring science crafts, Earth Day recycled trash crafts, weather unit activities

Spring is here, "Weather" or not the temperature agrees (LOL, get it?) How about free printable spring science crafts and weather unit activities to spring into the new season? As always, this Montessori teacher mama--now teacher Omi (grandma)-- shares hands-on, cross-curricular learning activities.  To welcome Earth Day, we'll use recycled trash for weather crafts. The age level for this unit is preschool to first grade. 

First, visit DL-TK for a rainbow of printable weather science craft projects. Make windsocks, windchimes, suncatchers, picture frame crafts and more from recycled trash. Use recycled paper to make free printables. 

To welcome spring, Earth Day, Easter, a new baby, how about making a giant greeting card on front walk? Bust out the sidewalk chalk and get busy decorating! No sidewalks? Use the patio or unfurl a roll of paper outside! Here's an easy, super cheap recipe for sidewalk chalk. 

Next, make pet baby tornados! Here's a Montessori activity for practical life learning centers. Have children wash glass jars and lids, to teach life skills of dishwashing. Next, children will fill glass jars almost to top with water and add a drop of dish soap. To create the baby tornado, shake jar with swirling motion. A funnel shape or vortex will appear. Use these science activities to demonstrate a vortex, tornado, funnel and even the sink drain works. You could discuss clouds, precipitation, wind.

To extend these hands-on science activities to language arts and creative writing, have kids think up names and make up stories for their pet tornado. Next, extend into math lesson plans making books from cereal box cardboard. Teach geometry, measurement, scissor skills cutting recycled paper to cover books. Next alternate writing and blank paper. Have children write on the lined paper and illustrate on the blank pages. 

Sing weather songs in circle time. Enjoy spring themed snacks (stay tuned for recipes to follow). For quiet time, read weather and spring science books like "The Year at Maple Tree Farm" "The Little House", "Ox-Cart Man", "The Carrot Seed" "The Lorax" "The Tiny Seed" and "Frog and Toad are Friends."          

Free Printable Spring Seasonal Lesson Plans, Coloring Pages

March 20-22 marks the vernal equinox, the first day of spring in many countries. For those of locked in ice and snow and cold, this date can't come too early. Many have had a long winter and are pretty happy to hear those cheery little birds singing and see tiny crocuses bravely trying to poke their lavender heads up through the snow. How about some free spring coloring pages, Easter holiday activities and spring crafts to occupy those children who are sick of winter and school?

Coloring Book Fun free printable spring coloring pages are simple enough for the not yet seasoned colorers, and yet offer more challenging pictures for veteran colorers. This site has a huge stock of free printable spring coloring pages and spring crafts based on seasons, weather, Easter holiday activities, topics, Bible based pictures, multi-cultural and animals. You can find just about any cartoon character from G.I.Joe to Barbie to Pokemon to Rug-rats to Rainbow Brite to Dragon Ball Z to Dora, plus all your Disney favorites.

DL-TK provides all sorts of free printable spring coloring pages, seasonal spring crafts, lesson plans, puzzles, crafts, projects, scissor practice, sequencing practice, music, song sheets, stories, spring crafts and Easter holiday activities. DLTK has all kinds of pre-school activities that will reinforce pre-reading, letter and number recognition, fine motor practice, telling time, tying shoes, counting, tracing and other skill builders based around a theme. You will find printables for baby animals, new life, butterflies and other insects, plants, flowers, rain, and more. You'll find some really cute Easter holiday activities and spring coloring pages as well!

Print Activities has a really large data bank of banner and ad-free printables with educational themes, There's no sign up or registration, very few if any pop-ups and easy one click printing. I found many styles of cross-word puzzles, calendars, tracing, mazes, word scrambles, word sorts, connect the dots, connect the dot using math problems, Sudoku, fill in the blanks, color by numbers, color by math (students complete math problems and complete a code to color pictures. All these spring crafts and puzzles are themed on seasons, but you can find other topics with themed puzzles: Easter holiday activities, seasons, animals, It may take a moment to load, but it is worth it.

Free Printables Insects and Spiders Lesson Plans and Activities

Spring is in the air--time for insects to make their appearance. Do you like insects and spiders or do they just bug you? Whether you're a hexapoda aficionado (bug lover) or a you have a arachnophobia, it's important to understand insects and spiders and their place in the environment. Here are free printable insects activities and bugs lesson plans. If there's something creepy crawly in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Bug Busters, aka Orkin Pest Control. Check out Orkin's online learning center for free printable insects lesson plans, bug identification charts, insect coloring pages, bug information, insect activity booklets, games, puzzles and worksheets.

Here's a beautifully illustrated free printable Insect Identification booklet. This free printable guide to insects features detailed images of bugs, plus information on bug habits and habitats. This will help identify safe and dangerous insects in the home, yard and environment. There are free printable insects lesson plans. Click here for the Orkin Pest Library with free printable insects diagrams, charts, images and activities. There are materials about ants, flies, cockroaches, rodents, termites, spiders, stinging pest, other pests and wildlife. Here's a free printable insects booklet with bug coloring pages, games, puzzles, experiments and crafts.

The Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History offers free printable lesson plans spiders, butterflies and insects booklet. Here's a free printable butterfly coloring pages. Insects, bugs and spiders are perfect spring science lesson plans. Explore caterpillars, butterflies and cocoons, spiders and spider webs. Here are free printable insects and spiders coloring pages. Print coloring pages of caterpillars, butterflies, ladybugs, bees, ants, dragonflies, moths, grasshoppers, beetles, praying mantis, mosquitoes, scorpions, flies, termites and fireflies or lightning bugs.

Spiders are not insects, but arachnids. Use free printable spider coloring pages to compare and contrast spiders and insects. Free Printable Coloring pages has nearly 50 insects and spiders coloring pages. Some are cartoon bugs but most are realistic images. Click this link for beautifully detailed butterfly coloring pages. Each butterfly species is labeled. Images look like stained glass windows coloring pages. Use them for science lessons on insects, butterflies, spring, metamorphosis or new life.

Coloring Castle has free printable coloring pages of bees and butterflies, There are also free printable ladybug coloring pages and lesson plans of a ladybugs 100 chart and a numbers 1-10 pyramid. Coloring Book Fun has free printable insect coloring pages, mostly cartoons.
Edupics has over 100 free printable insects coloring pages and 41 butterflies coloring pages. For more coloring book fun, visit the Grand Rapids Parenting Examiner at Free Coloring Pages 4U and for educational activities, Free Printable Lesson Plans. 

Free Printable Earth Day Lesson Plans and Activities

April 22 celebrates Earth Day, formerly called Arbor Day. It's such an important holiday that the entire month of April has come to be known as Earth Month. Do you need free printable Earth Day lesson plans for science class? Use these linked science activities in school classrooms, homeschool, scout troops, 4H and environmentalist clubs.

EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has free printable Earth Day activities. Print a cartoon-style graphic novel workbook entitled "On the Trail of the Missing Ozone." Students study atmosphere, the importance of the ozone layer and what we can do to protect it. Print in black and white so kids can color the booklet. Use in the science classroom, homeschool or for homework.

EPA Recycle City features interactive games, lessons, activities, printables and online resources for kids. Students explore recycling, landfill dangers, methane gas, trash, wildlife, environmental conditions and much more. Children learn many ways to help protect the earth. This website had activities on biology, earth science, life science and health. Use these resources all during Earth Month.

EPA Students has free printable science lesson plans geared to upper elementary, middle school and high school students also. There are printable science games, coloring pages, booklets and worksheets. There's a science resource page for educators and parents. There are homework helps, too. This comprehensive website features cross-curricular, multidisciplinary, hands-on science activities.

Planet Pals has lots of free printable science worksheets, lessons, games and activities. Planets Pals features an interactive online club format. Children will enjoy interacting as active participants, not just simply passive observers.

For more Earth Day resources and free printable activities, visit my blogs: Free Printable Lesson Plans and Science Experiments and Chemistry Activities

Free Printable Earth Day Insects and Bugs Coloring Pages, Spring Lessons

Do you like insects and spiders or do bugs bug you? Whether you're a hexapoda aficionado (bug lover) or a you have a arachnophobia, it's important to understand insects and spiders and their place in the environment. Here are free printable insects activities and bugs lesson plans. If there's something creepy crawly in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Bug Busters, aka Orkin Pest Control. Check out Orkin's online learning center for free printable insects lesson plans, bug identification charts, insect coloring pages, bug information, insect activity booklets, games, puzzles and worksheets.

Here's a beautifully illustrated free printable Insect Identification booklet. This free printable guide to insects features detailed images of bugs, plus information on bug habits and habitats. This will help identify safe and dangerous insects in the home, yard and environment. There are free printable insects lesson plans. Click here for the Orkin Pest Library with free printable insects diagrams, charts, images and activities. There are materials about ants, flies, cockroaches, rodents, termites, spiders, stinging pest, other pests and wildlife. Here's a free printable insects booklet with bug coloring pages, games, puzzles, experiments and crafts.

The Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History offers free printable lesson plans spiders, butterflies and insects booklet. Here's a free printable butterfly coloring pages. Insects, bugs and spiders are perfect spring science lesson plans. Explore caterpillars, butterflies and cocoons, spiders and spider webs. Here are free printable insects and spiders coloring pages. Print coloring pages of caterpillars, butterflies, ladybugs, bees, ants, dragonflies, moths, grasshoppers, beetles, praying mantis, mosquitoes, scorpions, flies, termites and fireflies or lightning bugs.

Spiders are not insects, but arachnids. Use free printable spider coloring pages to compare and contrast spiders and insects. Free Printable Coloring pages has nearly 50 insects and spiders coloring pages. Some are cartoon bugs but most are realistic images. Click this link for beautifully detailed butterfly coloring pages. Each butterfly species is labeled. Images look like stained glass windows coloring pages. Use them for science lessons on insects, butterflies, spring, metamorphosis or new life.

Coloring Castle has free printable coloring pages of bees and butterflies, There are also free printable ladybug coloring pages and lesson plans of a ladybugs 100 chart and a numbers 1-10 pyramid. Coloring Book Fun has free printable insect coloring pages, mostly cartoons.
Edupics has over 100 free printable insects coloring pages and 41 butterflies coloring pages. For more coloring book fun, visit the Grand Rapids Parenting Examiner at Free Coloring Pages 4U 

Free Printable Seasons Activities, Weather Lesson Plans, Spring science activities

March 21 marks the first day of spring in many countries. For those of us locked in ice and snow and cold, this date can't come too early. Many of us in the US have had a long, cold snowy winter; we are pretty happy to hear those cheery little birds singing and see tiny crocuses bravely trying to poke their lavender heads up from beneath the ice and snow. How about some free spring coloring pages to occupy those children who are getting tired of winter and students who have had enough of a school year with still many weeks to go? Fill your classrooms and homes with the colors of spring.
Coloring Book Fun got us through a long bout of bronchitis followed by chicken pox this winter. The coloring pages are simple enough for the not yet seasoned colorers, and yet offered some more challenging pictures for our veteran colorers. This site has a huge stock of free printable coloring pages based on seasons, weather, holidays, topics, Bible based pictures, multi-cultural and animals. You can find just about any cartoon character from G.I.Joe to Barbie to Pokemon to Rug-rats to Rainbow Brite to Dragon Ball Z to Dora, plus all your Disney favorites.
DLTK is a site I've featured for other printables. It provides all sorts of free printable coloring pages, lesson plans, puzzles, crafts, projects, scissor practice, sequencing practice, music, song sheets, stories, spring and Easter. DLTK has all kinds of pre-school activities that will reinforce pre-reading, letter and number recognition, fine motor practice, telling time, tying shoes, counting, tracing and other skill builders based around a theme. You will find printables for baby animals, new life, butterflies and other insects, plants, flowers, rain, and more. You'll find some really cute Easter coloring as well!
Print Activities has a really large data bank of banner and ad-free printables with educational themes, no sign up or registration, very few if any pop-ups and easy one click printing. I found many styles of cross-word puzzles, calendars, tracing, mazes, word scrambles, word sorts, connect the dots, connect the dot using math problems, Sudoku, fill in the blanks, color by numbers, color by math (students complete math problems and complete a code to color pictures. All these puzzles are themed on Spring, but you can find other topics with themed puzzles: holidays, seasons, animals, It may take a moment to load, but it is worth it.
May you have a happy spring, a blessed Easter and hours of pleasant learning and growing with your students and families!