Children's Learning Activities: Earth Day Painting

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This blog is here for you to find fun learning activities to do with your children. We share great ideas we find and love on the Internet, as well as ideas we come up with on our own! We also like to share resources we find helpful.

To find ideas for your child, click on the age range blog label or on the theme/topic you are looking for (on the left side of the page). In each post, we try to list optimal age ranges for the activity, but you must judge for yourself if it is appropriate for your child. When you try an activity out, please comment and let us (and everyone else) know how your child liked it!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Earth Day Painting

This is a simple activity that your children will love for Earth Day (this Friday). Your children will love it because children love painting.

AGE RANGE

This is something children of all ages can do. If you have a baby, you can help your baby do this, and I would suggest finger paints.

SUPPLIES

Earth coloring page print out. I used this one: http://parenting.leehansen.com/downloads/coloring/MISC/earth-color.gif
Paint of choice. You can do finger paints, tempera paints, water colors...whatever you want to. The photo above was done with water colors (by Brayden--age 5). Kaitlyn (3 going on 4) did both finger paints and tempera paints. McKenna (just turned 2) did finger paints.
Paper plate for holding paint. If doing water colors, you will need a small cup of water.
Paintbrushes if needed.
Optional: Tablecloth and paint shirts :). Also, a paper towel for each child will help keep things cleaner.

SET-UP

Set up table cloth, set papers out, and prep paint by pouring onto paper plates. Put paint shirts on children.

ACTIVITY

Tell your children you will be painting the Earth today. You can either direct or let them choose their paint of choice. I let the older two choose, but chose for McKenna.
Talk about what parts are water and what parts are land, then talk about what colors each part are.
For the older children, I suggest you require they paint the land and water the correct colors. Kaitlyn is my ever-artistic child, and she wanted to do some unique colors, but this was an activity to learn about the Earth. There are times to do creativity with your own imagination taking over, but it is also important for children to be able to identify reality, too. For older children you could even take this a step further and add in the other colors of browns and reds you can see on the Earth and put them in the right place. This would add a nice geography aspect to the activity.