Three Activities for Earth Day
Here are three wonderful activities from our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Nature Nancy, to celebrate Earth Day. Enjoy making a ‘Sense Poem’, capture ‘Nature through the Window’, and find out ‘Who Lives Nearby’. Don’t forget to report your Landmark to get points on the Pathway Individual and Group Leaderboards and be entered into the monthly prize draw.
1. SENSE POEM (GR. 3-8)- USING ALL YOUR SENSES TO CREATE A POEM
How many words can you think of to describe the smell of a flower? How many words can you think of to describe the movement of a cat?
Take a sheet of paper and a pencil and find a comfortable place to sit outside. Sit there for several minutes and use all of your senses (likely not taste unless you brought out a snack). Ask yourself all of these questions.
What do I feel?
What do I smell?
What do I see?
What do I hear?
What do I taste (this can be imagined)?
Answer each question with some words that fit with your experience.
For example, I see….bright yellow flowers, fluffy clouds, windy trees, busy ant.
In order to create your sense poem, take away each of the questions and just use the answers that you wrote next to the question. Try your own sense poems and compare on different days/time of day.
Here is my example:
Monday Morning by Nature Nancy
Cool wind, tickling grass, warm sun
Oats roasting, fresh-cut grass, sweet lilac waft
Bright yellow flowers, fluffy clouds, windy trees, busy ant
Honk, vroom, screech, caw, buzz, whoosh, chirp chirp Chocolate…Mmmmmm!
2. Nature Through the Window (Gr. 3-8)- Creating a Frame in a window to observe and draw the out of doors
You will be looking at nature from inside and out. Follow these steps:
1. Make a frame using a piece of construction paper (or plain white paper) by cutting out a rectangle from the middle.
2. Find a window in your home and place the frame on it. You may be looking at a combination of things in nature and human-made items outside. Move your frame around the window and see if it changes what you see. What do you see? Birds, trees, weather, insects, flowers….roads, buildings? How did your scene change when you moved the frame?
3. Compare the smells, sounds, and feeling you detect when you are inside and compare that to when you go outside.
4. Leave your construction paper frame on a part of your window and sketch what you see through the frame.
3. Who Lives Nearby? (Gr. 1-6) Creating a map of your neighbourhood and finding evidence of other creatures sharing our habitat.
- With paper and pencil in hand, walk around your neighbourhood and observe
examples of creatures living in this habitat. - In order to do this, you will need to make a map of the area that you are
observing. When you find evidence of different creatures that you recognize then
record it on your map. See the example to the left. - For example, you may see a robin’s nest in a tree and will mark that on your map where it was found in your neighbourhood. Enjoy!
interesting tree bark, or a patch of grass. Draw your child’s attention to some detail like “the bark feels bumpy”, “the grass tickles”. See if they can notice something as well. It’s helpful if your child can actively participate, like digging in a patch of dirt or “hugging” a tree. Make a little rhyme for the life you are noticing like “my big tree is bigger than me” or “squirmy squirmy wormy worm” that you can recall later. Try to revisit that spot once a week for several weeks to look for changes/similarities.
rch an animal, a plant, and a tree that grows there. Make a video that highlights what you love about this place, and some cool facts you know about at least 3 things that live there – an info-mercial!