If your kids loves watching the trash truck as much as mine do, then you can not skip celebrating Earth Day with your little learners. Today, I will be sharing my simple to set up learning activities that I use with my preschool students during our Earth Day themed week! I will walk you through sensory bins, crafts and hands-on centers!

Pin It! Don't forget to save this this blog for later! You don't want to forget about the BEST Earth Day themed activities for your preK classroom!

Recycle It Sensory Bin:

Materials Used:

• Green rice 
• Markers
• Recycling cards
• Recycling coloring sheet

Set up a sensory bin with a filler of your choice and add in the recycle cards. I used colored rice, which is one of my favorite sensory bin fillers! All you need to do is mix a little bit on white vinegar and food coloring into a bowl of dry white rice. Then, let it sit for a few hours to dry and you've got yourself a taste safe sensory bin!

Once you have your sensory bin filled, you can add in the recycling cards. I laminated the cards so they could be re-used by all my students. Now my preschool littles get to pick a recycling card, find it on their sheet and color it off.

Ocean Clean Up Sensory Bin:

Materials Used:

• Pebbles
• Rubber Fish (found at Target)
• Plastic Fish (from the Dollar Tree) 
• Ripped up pieces of paper and plastic for trash
• Fishing poles (found at Dollar Tree) 
• Bowls and Trash Cans for clean up 

This Earth Day sensory bin was SO simple to set up! I tossed in cut up plastic and foam pieces (if you can use items you were going to throw away anyways even better) to a bin of water. I set out some bowls, child tweezers, fishing poles, and those cute recycling bins that I found at the dollar tree!

My students LOVED picking out each piece of trash to "save the fish" and clean up the ocean! Since we live near the beach, this was a great sensory bin to help them understand why need to keep our home clean.

Recycling Craft for Earth Day:

Materials Used:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Recycling craft pages

I am always looking for ways to work on scissor skills, so I thought it would be fun to cut and paste recycling items to help my preschool students remember what can go in the recycling bin Don't worry, black/white and color options have been provided for each craft option!

Compost Cut and Paste Craft:

This craft is exactly like the recycling craft shown above, but it focuses on what goes into the compost! What I love about these crafts is that my students cut directly on the lines instead of cutting out complicated shapes, making it perfect for learning scissor skills!

 

Simple Earth Day Sensory Bin:

Materials Used:

• Colored rice
• Mini recycling bins (Dollar Tree)
• Pom poms
• Child tweezers
• Plastic spoons
• Toy trash trucks

Sometimes we need a reminder to KEEP IT SIMPLE! This sensory bin took me about 30 seconds to set up, but my students played with it all week long! Just add in your sensory bin filler (yep I re-used that colored rice!), and throw in any loose parts that you want! I added pom poms, child tweezers, spoons, the recycling bins and "trash trucks." Don't judge my trash trucks, I know they look like construction trucks, but I did not want to buy new toys. We use what we have right?

My preK learners loved scooping up the rice and filling up the bins. So simple and easy for Earth day! 

Trash Pick Up:

Materials Used:

• Colored rice (sensory bin filler)
• Trash color cards
• Trash Pick Up coloring sheet
• Dot markers

In case you can't tell by now, I love using colored rice, especially since it is so easy to re-use and add in new activities! All I did was swap out the cards from the recycle it sensory bin and added these trash color cards.

Students get to pick a trash color card, find it on their sheet and use a dot marker to record the colors they find. If you haven't added dot markers to your sensory bin center yet, this is your sign to give it a try! 

Recycle It Math Center:

Materials Used:

• Cut up plastic bags
• Cut up paper
• Glass pebbles (Dollar Tree)
• Sorting tray (Dollar Tree)
• Mini recycling bins (Dollar Tree)
• Recycle It mat
• Counting cards

To set up a this earth day math center, I grabbed my Dollar Tree sorting tray and filled it with recycling themed items (examples: cut up paper, cut up plastic bags, glass pebbles, etc). If you can use items that you were already going to throw away that is even better!

Students get to pick 3 counting cards to fill up the recycling bin and work on math skills! I placed my mini recycling bins onto our counting mats, but kids can place the items directly to the mat if you prefer!

Now It's Your Turn!

Are you excited to start setting up your own Earth Day preschool centers? Don't worry, all of these Earth Day printables are all in one place!