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Have an Eco - Birthday Party - Inspired by Emily, Age 8, Mystic, Connecticut Kids' Book Project Involves kids illustrating copies of the story and selling their own editions to help the rainforest - and their schools/communities: DREAM THE FOREST WILD: How Children Saved a Rainforest by Sue Memhard with Jim Crisp Be a Habitat Hero - Be a part of the National Geographic's Million-Kid Habitat Hero Campaign. Join kids all over the world in making a pledge to help improve our environment. Make Recycled Paper from old newspaper. Recycled Art By teacher Jill Willis of Bowling Green, Kentucky Make Music From Natural Objects by Steven, Age 9, Setauket, New York Make an Animal by Alex, Age 9, East Setauket, New York
Help Your Teacher Make
Your Classroom Eco-Friendly
by Ms. Siegelman's Third Grade
Class
Sounds and Colors by Joseph Cornell
Blind Walk by
Joseph Cornell
Find Your Age by Joseph Cornell Click here if you have a favorite activity that you would like to share.
Sounds and Colors
In a forest , meadow, marsh or park, sit or lie down on your back with both fists held up in the air. Every time you hear a new bird song lift one finger. This is a wonderful way to become aware of the sounds (and the stillness) of nature. For fun see if you can count to 10 without hearing a bird song. Vary the game by listening for general animal sounds - or for any sounds at all, like wind in the grass, falling leaves, rushing water. See if you can follow the wind as it flows through the forest. See how many colors you can see in front of you without moving from where you are standing. Modified from Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Cornell. Used with permission of the author. Click here to go to the top of the page. Blind Walk
It's very simple to organize and lead a blind walk. Form pairs, with mixed adults and kids or kids together, if the kids are mature enough. Each pair decides who'll be the leader first, and who'll be blindfolded. The leader guides his or her partner along any route that looks attractive - being very careful to watch for logs, low branches and so on. The leader also guides his or her blind partner's hands to interesting objects, and brings him or her within range of interesting sounds and smells. Remember to demonstrate how to lead your partner safely, and to remind the leaders that they are the eyes for their blindfolded partners. When people try something new, they're often nervous and cover it up by joking and laughing. Since covering one's eyes is a new experience for many kids, It's helpful to play the following game before a blind walk. Ask everyone to sit in a circle and each person is to use his sense of smell, touch, and possibly hearing to discover something new about the object. Have each player share his discovery before passing the object to the next player. Note on Blind Activities: Vision is the sense we depend on the most. Not being able to use sight, we must fall back on our less-used senses of hearing, touch and smell. Our attention is powerfully focused on these senses and our perceptions through them are intensified. The babbling of our minds slows down, overwhelmed by the information that our fully-awake senses are giving us. Modified from Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Cornell. Used with permission of the author. Click here to go to the top of the page. Find Your Age
In this activity each person tries to find a tree his/her own age. It's easy to estimate how many years a young pine spruce, larch or fir tree has, by counting its whorls or branches. In these trees you can see where one year's growth of branches all radiate out from the same band. Simply count the sets of branches and you'll have the approximate age of the tree. Be sure to add extra years for the branch whorls the tree has probably lost at its base. If you look closely you may be able to see scars where the old branches have broken off. You'll find the best shaped young trees growing in open clearings, well away from the larger, more dominant trees. (This activity only works with trees up to about 25 years old, because as they grow older, it's difficult to estimate their age.) Tell the players how a conifer tree grows - from the tip upwards. Each year's new growth grows beyond last year's new growth which stays at the same height. The youngest part of the tree is at the very top, while the oldest is at the bottom. The tree also grows from the tips of its branches and roots, as well as a little in diameter at the trunk each year. The trunk doesn't grow any higher, but stays at the same height. To see if the players understand this, you can ask the following question: "If I nailed a board five feet high on a tree, how much higher would it be after 30 years?" If they think the board will be higher ask them if they've ever seen a barbwire fence nailed to a tree - hanging twenty-feet form the ground! Study the tree to see if you can tell anything about its growth and life. For example, I was studying a twenty-year old ponderosa pine, when I discovered I could see the history of northern California's rainfall reflected in its growth. Counting back in years from the top of the tree, I could see energetic growth between the branch whorls during rainy years, and little growth during the drought of the 80's. Other things you can look for are fire scars; places where animals have used the tree, like deer rubbing their antlers, or bird nests; where another branch has taken over for a tip that was damaged (look for a bend in the trunk); and how its surroundings may have affected the tree.
Modified from Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Cornell. Used with permission of the author. Click here to go to the top of the page. Do you have a great activity that you would like to share ? Click here to go to the top of the page.
Awesome Green Activities for Kids to Help Improve the
Environment and Learn about Nature
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