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Showing posts with label wind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wind. Show all posts

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 Weather Activities, Coloring Pages

Spring means severe weather and increased concern for natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes. Here are free printable weather science lesson plans on natural disasters, fire safety, emergency preparedness and other severe weather issues.
NOAA, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, has free printable severe weather science lesson plans. Print materials from the NWS (National Weather Service) and the Red Cross. There is a series of free printable severe weather science booklets from the Red Cross on Owlie Skywarn, an owl who teaches children about different kinds of weather. Owlie covers thunder storms, tornadoes, lightning, floods, hurricanes and winter storms. The booklet is 44 pages long and contains free printable coloring pages. Learn about severe weather with Billy and Maria. These children explore storms, lightning, hurricanes, fire safety and emergency preparedness in free printablesevere weather coloring pages, puzzles, word searches and weather experiments.
NOAA has a free printable booklet about the tsunamis and earthquakes with Tommy Tsunami and Ernie Earthquake. It explores the relationship between the two phenomena. This booklet is 15 pages long and has several activities for weather science units. There is a free printable guide to make a weather satellite, too.
Ready.gov is the homepage for free printable emergency safety kids activities from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Children can follow Herman the hermit crab as he teaches children about emergency preparedness, weather science, natural disasters, This site helps children create emergency safety response plans.
Spring severe weather science is also concerned with wildfires which are sparked by droughts. October is offical Fire Prevention month. You could follow up weather science units with science lessons on wildfires and fire safety. Visit Sparky.for free printable fire safety and emergency safety games, coloring pages and activities about fire prevention. Over 75 years ago, a little bear was discovered wandering alone after wildfires, then called a forest fires, took his home. He was namedSmokey Bear and he became the voice for forest rangers and fire prevention. Get free printable fire emergency safety help there too.
Ready.gov is a natural disasters emergency preparedness website maintained by FEMA with free printable severe weather resources, lesson plans, emergency planning kits and lots of resources. Ready.gov teaches students about natural disasters and weather-related emergency safety. You'll find lesson plans and activities for wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, storm safety, floods, blizzards, droughts and more. The focus of the website is two-pronged: Make an Emergency Plan and Get a Kit. Ready.gov provides printable checklists to prepare for disaster.

Children might read The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck to learn more about tidal waves (now called tsunamis). The Big Wave is a 1948 story of a Japanese family's experiences following a tsunami. After the 2004 tsunami, Scholastic Books made copies of this book available at reduced rates, to help children understand the event.This books explains floods and hurricane storm surges like the one that drowned New Orleans and much of the gulf coast in Hurricane Katrina of 2005.