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In our homeschool, we celebrated Earth Day this year with three activities:

1. Trash pick-up around our neighborhood.

It rained on April 22, so we could not pick up trash in our neighborhood. We did it today, two days later, after the ditches dried up. The kids love to get into the ditches to pick up trash and I would prefer not to have to clean up muddy boots. 

We filled up five shopping bags or 13 gallons worth of bottles, cans, plastic pieces, Styrofoam cups, Subway sandwich wrappers, candy bags and bits of papers. Some paper was pink, which delighted my daughter, who loves all things pink. Pink trash!

One would think we live in a trashy neighborhood, but we don’t. Most trash was around overnight rentals, which are about six homes down from our house.

2. Coloring a Crayola page with an Earth Day theme.

We talked about the Earth being a gift from God, its Creator. I gave them envelops with their names on them, which contained a picture of the Earth. I told them God gave the Earth to them and all of us as a gift, so we can enjoy the plants and animals and air and mountains and seas. As such, we should take good care of it. It’s called stewardship.

The envelop idea came from Horizons Preschool, a curriculum I am loosely working through with my daughter. The whole thing went along nicely with our Apologia worldview curriculum called “What On Earth Can I Do?” – review coming up in May, by the way.

3. Planting an AeroGarden.

Somebody gave us this amazing contraption about a year ago. I kept it in the garage, thinking I would start this indoor water garden during the long winter months. Well, I never got around to it. I almost gave it away at one point.

We finally put it together and it’s looking good. Some of the seeds are already germinating. We can see them through the domes. It turns itself on for 16 hours and it shuts off for eight hours. A light comes on when I need to add water. Another light comes on when I need to add nutrients. For city girls like me, this is the perfect garden.

Speaking of gardens, we need to re-plant our small veggie patch. Two days after we planted our tomatoes and peppers, we got hail and snow. Even though I covered them, they shriveled up and died. If that’s not a metaphor for putting children out of their homes at an early age, when they are not yet prepared to face cold shoulders, teasing, competition, bullies and all the other harsh realities of a school setting.

Yes, everything brings me back to homeschooling.

By the way, my kids loved picking up trash and my son said he would like to do it every day. That’s probably because I told them that every day is Earth Day. Every day is our birthday. Being alive is a privilege worth celebrating. I told him we could plan on a weekly trash pick up around our neighborhood.

Isn’t homeschooling wonderful? We get to change events based on the weather without having to fill out paper work.