World Earth Day Activities

World Earth Day will be celebrating its 45th birthday this year, on April 22nd. Now, more than ever, is the time to get our children involved in taking measures to protect our planet. Children are aware of the importance of recycling and energy saving, but the more we educate children on exactly how we impact our planet, the greater chance of creating a sustainable future. Earth Day Network shows you ways that you and your children can take action and make a difference. There are also very simple things that you can do on Earth Day itself, as pointed out in the latest Barefoot Books blog.

The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales is the perfect book to read in the run up to World Earth Day. Each of the seven folk tales, featured in the collection, show how different cultures around the world embrace the natural world and strive to live in harmony. 

The short stories are great for snatching a short period of family time together, in the midst of a busy day. You can simply read aloud together or, if you have more time on your hands, you can have a go at the hands-on activity attached to the end of each story. Activities include ' Everything Goes Soup' and homemade bird feeders, and all promote green living and eco messages. 

The first story in the collection is The Sun Mother, a story from Australia. After an introduction to the country itself, the story goes on to spread the message that if we all look after the little patch of earth where we belong, between us we can care for the whole earth. The activity at the end of this story is to make an aboriginal song-line painting. Song-line paintings are traditional pieces of art that depict areas that are social to the painter. The activity encourages children to think of their favourite place, a garden or park for example, and to paint with whatever materials they have at hand. You could use sand, chalk, charcoal or whatever natural pigments you can find or, like us, you can just use paints.

We took our book and paints in the sunny backyard and got to work on our song-line paintings, influenced by our local park

We had lots of fun and, of course, ended up getting very messy, which is what we like best! We would love to see your song-line paintings of your favourite place on earth.