Earth day is celebrated to raise awareness about the importance of saving the environment and living sustainably. This is also an ideal time to teach kids the importance of conservation and taking care of the planet. One of the best ways to do this is with earth day art and craft for kids. Crafts are super fun and engaging for kids and can help them stay focused and curious. To help you celebrate this earth day with your little ones, we’ve curated our favorite 40 earth day crafts for kids here!
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40 Fun Earth Day Crafts for Kids
1. Yogurt Cup Animals
Things You’ll Need: Paint, empty yogurt cups, paintbrush, and googly eyes
How To Do: Handover some empty yogurt cups to your kids and ask them to stack and paint them into their favorite animals. For a better finish, kids can also cover the stacked cups with glue, water and tissues and paint them later on. Don’t forget to add googly eyes and any other accessories the kids like to add personality to the animals.
2. Cupcake Liner Flowers
Things You’ll Need: Blue and green cupcake liners, floral wires, floral tape, and scissors
How To Do: Fold the cupcake liners in half and cut along the fringes to give them a leaf-like shape. When you unfold the liners, you will notice a flower-like appearance. Now poke a hole with a flower wire and entwine it together before taping it with floral tape.
3. Paper Plate Earth Day Craft
Things You’ll Need: Blue and green paint, paper plate, wooden pegs, pencil, scissors, skin-colored paper, cotton balls, paintbrush, and glue
How To Do: Start by attaching cotton balls at the ends of wooden pegs. Dip one in blue paint and the other in green. Use these to paint a paper plate in alternating blue and green sections. While the plate dries, trace the kids’ hands onto skin-colored paper, cut them out, and attach them to the sides of the plate to make it look like someone is holding it. Once dry, fold the hand cutouts behind the plate and glue them in place.
4. Paper Plate Weaving Craft
Things You’ll Need: Paper plates, blue and green yarn, scissors
How To Do: Begin by cutting notches on the rim of the paper plates to provide a base for weaving. Provide the paper plates to the children and start with one color of yarn. The children must first create a star pattern by threading the yarn through the notches and securing it on the opposite notch. They can continue this process to create a star pattern before starting to weave with another yarn. Assist them in tying the two yarns together when finished to create a lovely craft that can be hung on their room’s walls.
5. Earth Day Sensory Bin Craft
Things You’ll Need: Soil, toy trees, sand toys, any other toys you want to include, and a big box to put all of this in
How To Do: Fill the bin with soil, dirt, pebbles, sand toys, tree toys, and other items, and allow the children to explore and play in it. Encourage them to touch, examine, and feel everything, and explain the purpose of each object in the sensory bin.
6. Earth Day Hand Imprint Craft
Things You’ll Need: Salt dough, blue and green food color, heart-shaped cookie cutter, oven, and smiling pictures of each kid
How To Do: Begin by adding blue and green food coloring to the dough. Place the dough in a bowl and flatten it. Repeat this step for each child, and ask them to imprint their hands on the dough. Use a cookie cutter to cut out the palm section and make two holes at the top. Bake the dough at 200°F for three hours. After the dough has cooled, attach a picture of each child in the heart-shaped space. Then hang the finished product in your classroom.
7. Crafts with Vegetables
Things You’ll Need: Lotus stem, Ladyfinger, paintbrush, water, paper, paint
How To Do: For this Earth Day activity, encourage the kids to create a painting masterpiece using vegetables such as ladyfinger and lotus stem. Cut one side of the vegetable, dip it in paint, and use it as a stamp on the paper to create beautiful imprints. Ask the kids to repeat the process to create a painting that celebrates Earth Day.
Related Reading: Painting Ideas Kids Can Have Fun With & Easily Pull Off
8. Snowstorm in a Jar
Things You’ll Need: Alka-Seltzer tablets, water, baby oil, blue or white acrylic paint, mason jar
How To Do: Take about 2 cups of water in a separate jar and mix the acrylic paint in it. Shake it well so that it mixes nicely. Now fill half of the mason jar with baby oil and pour the paint mix into it. You will notice the paint directly goes and settles at the bottom. Leave the jar so that the liquids can settle in their places. Now let your kid drop an Alka Seltzer tablet and watch the liquid bubble like crazy. Once you drop the second tablet, you’ll see the snowstorm!
9. Playdough Craft
Things You’ll Need: Green and blue playdough
How To Do: Provide the children with blue and green playdough and instruct them to use it to make a section of a globe or even a map of a country. For reference, give them printables of maps and show them a globe that they can watch and copy with their playdough.
10. Tissue Paper Earth Craft
Things You’ll Need: Green construction paper, printable map template, blue tissue paper, glue, and paper plate
How To Do: Start by printing out the Map Template and carefully cutting it out. Trace the template onto green cardstock or construction paper and cut out the green Earth shape. Cut the blue tissue paper into 1-inch squares and scrunch them up before gluing them to a paper plate to create the ocean. To make it easier, squirt glue onto a paper plate and dip the blue paper pieces into it before attaching them to the plate. Once the tissue paper ocean covers the plate, place the continents/land onto it to resemble planet Earth. Glue each piece of land/map onto the paper plate ocean and let it dry. To hang this craft, punch a hole at the top of the paper plate Earth, thread some twine, yarn, or ribbon through it, and hang it up.
11. Suncatcher Craft
Things You’ll Need: Ribbon, blue and green glitter, glue, Q tip, hole punch, plastic lid
How To Do: To start, cover the plastic lid with a generous amount of glue and then completely coat it with glitter. While doing this, you can have a conversation with the kids about how much land and water they think there is on Earth. Depending on their answers, they can fill in the appropriate amount of blue or green glitter on the lid. Afterward, let it dry out for a few days until the glue starts to peel off easily. Punch a hole in the lid and tie a ribbon through it so that it can be hung near a window and admired as a sparkly Earth.
12. Coffee Filter Paper Craft
Things You’ll Need: Newspaper, Coffee Filter, spray bottle, water, dropper, blue and green food colors
How To Do: Cover a table with newspapers and place coffee filters on top to prevent food color and water from staining the surface. The newspapers will also absorb any excess water or color. Fill droppers with blue or green food coloring and instruct the kids to add drops to the coffee filters. They will be fascinated to watch as the color spreads across the filter. Finally, spray water over the filters to blend the blue and green colors together. Allow the filters to dry completely before hanging them on the classroom walls.
13. Plantable Seed Paper
Things You’ll Need: Shredded paper, small seeds of any plant, a white felt sheet, a wooden frame, mesh, blender, water, a tray, and sponge
How To Do: This is one of the most fun and engaging earth day crafts for kids. Start with blending the shredded paper in the blender. Add some water to make the job easy. To make enough paper, use about four blenders full of shredded paper. Once it converts into pulp, take out the pulp into a tray and add lots of clean water. Now, staple the mesh in the middle of the frame tightly to make sure there is minimal slack, and take this frame and submerge it in the tray. Make sure there is an even and thin layer of paper accumulating in the frame. This is when you should insert a few small seeds into the paper. Take it out gently and leave it be for a while to drain as much water as possible. Now dab it very gently with a sponge to remove any excess water. Make sure there is no paper sticking to the sponge. Now put a felt sheet on top of the frame and flip it over so that the remaining water is absorbed by the sheet. After a while, leave the paper out in the sun, and it will take about 24 hours to fully dry and convert into paper.
14. Bird Bookends
Things You’ll Need: Wooden bookends, acrylic paint of your choice, bird cutouts, mod podge, brush
How To Do: Let the kids paint the bookend with acrylic paint of their choice. Cut an image of a bird from a magazine or book and apply a layer of mod podge at the back of the bird and place it on the bookend. Now apply an even layer of mod podge on the whole bookend for it to look consistent. Repeat the steps for all other bookends.
Related Reading: Best Drawing Ideas for Kids They Will Love
15. Earth Day Slime
Things You’ll Need: 1 tsp borax, water (2 cups hot, half cup room temperature), CLear glue, 2 plastic containers, blue and green litter, slime container.
How To Do: Looking for earth day craft ideas? You’ll love this one! Begin by pouring 1 cup of hot water into a container and adding ½ tsp of borax. Stir until the borax has dissolved completely. In a separate container, pour ¼ cup of room temperature water and add a 5 oz bottle of clear glue, squeezing it into the water. If you require a lot of glue, it may be cost-effective to buy larger containers. Add blue glitter to the mixture and stir slowly and thoroughly. You can use fine glitter for green and regular glitter for blue, depending on your preference. If you prefer clear slime, you can skip the glitter and add-ins altogether. Next, pour the glue mixture into the hot water and borax mix and allow it to sit for about 20-30 seconds. During this time, you can rinse out the empty bowl or use a third bowl. The slime will start to form quite rapidly in hot water. Remove the slime and place it in an empty bowl. At this point, the slime may be somewhat sticky, which is perfectly acceptable. Knead it for a few minutes, and it will thicken and set. Repeat the process, this time using green glitter instead of blue. Combine your blue and green slime and store the slime in an airtight container.
16. Hand Print Earth Day Craft
Things You’ll Need: Paintbrush, paper, blue and green paint, water, and paper plate
How To Do: Begin by pouring blue and green paint into separate paper plates and adding a small amount of water to each. Then, instruct the children to either paint their hands with both colors or dip their hands into the paint and make handprints on a large chart paper. You can write the names of each child beside their handprint and use the chart paper as a decoration for Earth Day by hanging it in the room.
17. Craft Stick Flower Pots
Things You’ll Need: Colorful craft sticks, rubberband, tin can, ribbon, garden soil, and flowers
How To Do: Start with putting in the soil inside the tin can and carefully planting the flowers in it. Now put a rubberband over the tin can and start putting in the craft sticks one by one around it, under the rubber band. Fill this up completely and cover the rubber band with a ribbon.
18. Collage Art
Things You’ll Need: Bits of paper, cardboard, cloth pieces and leaves, scissors, paper, and gum
How To Do: This is a fun earth day craft for kindergarten kids. Gather small, worthless items like the ones listed earlier and encourage the children to use these materials to make art. They can create a collage of their choosing, such as a portrait, a cityscape, a park scene, or anything else they desire.
19. Bird Feeder Craft
Things You’ll Need: Scissors, birdseed, string, peanut butter, cardboard tube or toilet paper roll, bamboo skewer, and butter knife
How To Do: To create the bird feeder, begin by cutting a pair of holes at the top and bottom of the tube. Next, insert a bamboo skewer into the bottom hole to serve as a bird perch. Then, spread peanut butter onto the outside of the tube using a butter knife and roll it in birdseed to make it adhere. Lastly, thread a string or thread through the top hole and hang the feeder on a higher surface.
20. Watercolor Art Pillow
Things You’ll Need: Watercolor and brush, 2 yards trim, 1/2 yard fabric, 14″ pillow form, 14″ x 14″ piece of white fabric, Paint palette, wax paper, Terrarium Pattern, and a water cup
How To Do: Print out the terrarium pattern and place wax paper on top to protect the pattern and your surface. Lay fabric on top. Prepare a paper plate for paint mixing and a cup of water for thinning the paint. Use the smallest brush to paint the succulent leaves, adding water to the paint and surface for a watercolor effect. Paint one side and pull the paint to the other side for a shaded look. Continue painting the succulent leaves, including the stem. Leave some light and dark areas. Use the pattern as a reference. Add shading, dots, and details with darker colors. Thin the paint less this time. Let the design dry for several hours to avoid getting paint on the pillow back fabric. Finally, sew an envelope back and add trim to the pillow.
Related Reading: Best Online Art Games for Kids for Fun and Creativity
21. Earth Day Mask Craft
Things You’ll Need: Printed earth day mask, colors, and popsicle sticks
How To Do: Distribute a printout of the Earth Day mask to each child and allow them to color their own mask. Once completed, attach a popsicle stick to each side of the mask so that the children can hold it against their faces as a mask. This a fun activity for kids!
22. Mosaic Earth Craft
Things You’ll Need: Old magazines and newspapers, cardboard, pen or pencil, scissors, glue, yarn, and beads.
How To Do: Start by printing the pattern and laying it over the back of a cereal box. Trace the design onto the cardboard to create an indentation. Use a pen or pencil to lightly outline the indentation. Cut small squares of construction paper or magazines. Use a glue stick and the pattern as a guide to add the pieces to the circular shape. Once finished, flip it over and trim the excess. Make a hanger using yarn and beads, and attach it to the back of the shape.
23. Grass Crown Craft
Things You’ll Need: Flower stickers, paint or colored paper, scissors, and glue
How To Do: Begin by providing the necessary materials for the children to create their own crowns. They can either paint white paper green or use pre-colored green paper. Instruct them to measure the diameter of their heads and then affix the paper accordingly. Cut the upper edge of the crown in a zig-zag pattern, and let the kids finish by adding their favorite stickers to personalize their crowns.
24. Tin Can Planters
Things You’ll Need: Punch, old tin cans, drill/ hammer and nail, a succulent, cactus soil, and crafty accessories
How To Do: To prepare the tin can for planting, use a large nail and hammer to create holes at the bottom. Next, use a strong punch to make two small arm holes on either side, a little less than halfway down. Insert a pipe cleaner through the holes and bend the ends to create hands. Fill the can with soil and plant your desired plant, using succulent soil if needed. Enhance the appearance of the can by adding accessories that give it personality such as googly eyes and pom-poms.
25. Earth Day Stained Glass Craft
Things You’ll Need: Blue and green tissues, contact paper, scissors, and glue
How To Do: Create a circle using contact paper and trace a black outline around its edges. Allow the children to cut small pieces of tissue paper and place them inside the circle. Finally, use another sheet of contact paper to cover the circle and display it near a window that receives plenty of sunlight.
26. Cardboard Sun Craft
Things You’ll Need: Paint, cardboard, sun template, cutting mat, glue or tape, craft knife, scissors
How To Do: If you’re looking for some fun and easy earth day art projects for kids, this a great one. Begin by printing the template and cutting out the pieces. Trace the patterns onto the preferred location and cut them out. Finally, assemble the pieces using strong tape or glue.
27. Hanging Planter Craft
Things You’ll Need: Planter or plastic container, jute string, water, garden soil, and seeds
How To Do: There are two ways to create a holder for the pot using jute strings: you can either construct one or drill holes into the top of the container or bottle and thread the strings through. Once the strings are in place, tie them securely and hang the planter from the ceiling. Encourage the kids to pull the strings through the holes, add garden soil, place the seed, and decorate the planters with paint. Additionally, make sure to drill a few small holes at the bottom to allow excess water to drain.
28. Paper Quilled Earth Day Craft
Things You’ll Need: Colored paper, scissors, acrylic paint, old toothbrush, chopstick, pencil, glue, and paintbrush
How To Do: Create your night sky background by mixing white acrylic paint with a small amount of water to create a runny consistency. Use an old toothbrush to create splatters and dots on your paper. Allow it to dry completely before moving on. Draw an earth shape on black paper using a plastic lid as a template, and cut it out. Use a paintbrush to apply glue around the circle, then take strips of dark blue paper to create the shape of the earth. Next, create paper coils by wrapping strips of paper around a chopstick or pencil, dipping them in white glue, and gluing them to your paper. Encourage children to experiment with different quilled shapes to make their designs unique. Add small stars cut from white paper and a heart cut from red paper to complete your Earth Day craft.
Related Reading: Easy Activities for Preschoolers [With Tutorials]
29. No Mess Painting Craft
Things You’ll Need: A printout of the earth to be filled with color, a plastic bag, and blue and green paint
How To Do: One of the most enjoyable Earth Day crafts for kids involves placing a printout or cut-out of the earth inside a plastic bag, along with some blue and green coloring. Then, give the bag to the kids and observe as they use their small hands to color the earth without creating any mess.
30. Birdseed Ornament Craft
Things You’ll Need: Parchment paper, corn syrup, straw, cold and boiling water, birdseed, gelatin (2 packets), cookie cutters, and twine
How To Do: To begin the activity, mix the gelatin with half a cup of cold water. Then, add half a cup of boiling water and two tablespoons of corn syrup. Add birdseed to the mixture and fill a cookie-cutter mold with it. Instruct the children to pat the mixture down with parchment paper until the mold is fully filled. They can also use a needle to create a hole for threading a string through, allowing it to be hung outside for the birds to enjoy. Freeze the mixture overnight and remove the solidified mix in the morning. Hang it in a higher area and observe the children delight in watching little birds feed on their homemade snacks!
31. Earth Day Crayons Craft
Things You’ll Need: Old blue and green crayons, peeler, knife, oven, silicone tray
How To Do: First peel the blue and green crayons to remove the dirty bits on top and make them clean. Cut the crayons into tiny pieces carefully and fill the silicone tray with them. Make sure you’re only adding them halfway in the tray to ensure there’s space for them to melt in the oven. Now pop them in the oven at 100 degrees for 15 minutes. Leave them overnight to dry and pop them out of the tray in the morning, and you’ll have a brand new earth day crayon!
32. Marble Paint Craft
Things You’ll Need: Blue and green paint, shaving cream, tissue paper, and paper plates
How To Do: This is one of the easy earth day crafts your kids will love. Provide the children with shaving cream and blue and green paint and encourage them to mix and play with it, creating a fun and messy experience. Once the mixture is ready, have them coat a plate with the cream and allow it to dry in the sun.
33. Milk Carton Bird House
Things You’ll Need: Milk carton, cardboard, colored paper, glue, scissors, a wooden spoon, and cutter
How To Do: Start with painting the milk carton white so that the print does not bleed out on the feeder. Let the kids cover this in their favorite colored paper in a collage with glue and cover this over with another layer of glue. Now fold the cardboard and repeat the same steps for it to put on top of the feeder as a shade. Once everything dries, cut a door in the carton, and just below the door, cut an x shape to put the wooden spoon through. Push the spoon all the way back and glue it to the wall there before letting it dry overnight. Hang the feeder outside and put some birdseed and let the kids enjoy the view!
34. Earth Day Ornaments Crafts
Things You’ll Need: Paint, paintbrushes, salt dough, oven, and thread or ribbon for hanging
How To Do: This is one of the most fun earth day project ideas. Allow the children to play with the dough and mold it into various shapes according to their preferences. After they finish shaping the ornaments, make a hole at the top of each one to thread through some string for hanging. Next, bake the ornaments in the oven to dry them out, and then provide the kids with blue and green paint to decorate their creations. Finally, hang the painted ornaments from the ceiling.
35. Plastic Lid Ladybugs
Things You’ll Need: Black acrylic paint, plastic lids, wiggly eyes, glue, and paintbrush
How To Do: First, clean and dry the plastic lid. Then, use a paintbrush to create an almond shape at one end of the lid for the head. Next, use black paint and the handle end of a paintbrush to make various-sized spots on the lid. Allow the paint to dry completely. Finally, attach the wiggly eyes with white craft glue.
36. Seed Jar Making
Things You’ll Need: Seeds, paper towels, water, and clear jars
How To Do: Get the jars ready and distribute one to each kid. Instruct them to fill their jars with folded paper towels and add water until the jar is full. Then, have them carefully place the seeds near the jar’s edges on top of the paper towels. By doing so, they can observe the seeds as they gradually sprout. Once the seeds have sprouted, they can be transplanted into the garden.
37. Pebble Art Craft
Things You’ll Need: Pebbles, glue, picture frame, pencil, eraser, sharpie, twig, scissors, and ruler
How To Do: Arrange cardstock, twig and pebbles to form a bird and leaf design. Draw bird features on pebbles with a pencil, trace with Sharpie, then glue them to paper using Krazy Glue. Hold each in place for 10 seconds and leave to dry overnight. Finally, display in an open-front picture frame.
38. Hotel for Insects Craft
Things You’ll Need: Tree bark, pine cones, a plastic bottle, pine cones, twigs, small sticks, etc.
How To Do: To create an insect hotel, cut a plastic bottle in half and punch two holes on the top for threading a string through it to hang. Discard the sides and cut the bottle to form two cylinders. Fill the bottle with natural materials like pinecones, twigs, sticks, and bark. Hang it in a suitable location where insects and bugs can benefit from it.
39. Unicorn Planters
Things You’ll Need: Marker, pots, felt flowers, white card stock, glitter paper, succulents, glue gun, crayons, soil scissors, gardening equipment, pink and white felt
How To Do: Remove your succulent from its original container and place it in a new pot, packing soil around it until the plant is securely in place. Next, use black markers to draw a face and features on the pot. Cut circles from pink felt for cheeks, white felt for ears, and pink felt for inner ears, and then attach them to the pot with the glue gun. Add felt flowers to the pot using glue. Create a horn by cutting it out of glitter paper and gluing it onto the planter.
40. Earth Day Paper Garland
Things You’ll Need: Colored paper, yarn, scissors, glue
How To Do: This is an easy earth day craft for kindergarten kids. Locate an image of a globe and a person, and cut them out to use as templates. Utilize these templates to make circles for the globe and the continents. Also, cut out the person template in different colors. Attach the continents to the circle shapes using glue, and then attach them to the back of the string and yarn.
Related Reading: Different Types of Graphic Organizers for Teachers and Students
Conclusion
It’s time to finish reading and start taking action to help your kids create amazing earth day crafts. We hope you were able to fish out some earth day crafts for kids from this list and that you have a fun-filled earth day with your little ones!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are some ways of teaching kids about the earth?
Teaching kids about the earth is essential not just from an academic perspective but to help them realize the importance of sustainability. Some ways to teach them about the earth are by reading books, spending time outdoors, storytelling, recycling crafts, and gardening.
Why are crafts important for kids?
Crafts have lots of benefits for kids. Studies published in the Journal of Early Childhood Research found that crafting activities help develop children’s cognitive and language skills. The study showed that children who engage in crafts regularly have better problem-solving skills, are more curious and creative, and have stronger verbal communication abilities than those who don’t.
What crafts are good for kids?
Some crafts that are great for kids are homemade play dough, lava lamps, slime, arts, etc.
