10 Ways to Celebrate Earth Month With Kids

While Earth Month is a great time to reflect on your own habits and the effect they have on our planet, for children, it can be a fun way to encourage that first step into the world of sustainability. If you want to teach your kids about the importance of recycling, ethical food sourcing, gardening, and building environmentally conscious habits, there’s no better time of the year to get started — and we’re here to help. 

Use these tips for celebrating Earth Month with kids to get the whole family outdoors (or in the kitchen, or even out to the recycling bin!) all month long. 

10 Fun and Educational Kids’ Earth Month Activities 

Teach them to compost. 

Composting is a simple, everyday chore that the little ones will love to help out with. They can easily collect food scraps after preparing a meal, then place them in a countertop or standing compost bin. These plant-based food scrap bags help to keep your indoor compost bin clean and odor-free. 

Get them in the garden.

If you have a bit of outdoor space, plant a vegetable patch with your little ones. While some tasks may be too challenging for younger children, kids can easily help out with shoveling the earth, planting seedlings, or — most fun of all — harvesting vegetables once they’re ripe. (No yard? No problem! Planting tomatoes or kale in a pot on your balcony has the same benefits.) 

Foster a low-waste lifestyle from an early age. 

Kids can easily get on board with minimizing waste throughout the home. Use Earth Month as a starting point for teaching them about the environmental impact of single-use plastics, and then show them how to cut back on waste when they’re doing crafts, making a snack, or even helping out with chores.

Teach them how to talk about climate change. 

For older kids, now is a great time to learn the lingo surrounding climate change. Things like carbon emissions, regenerative agriculture, and the ozone layer are all topics that may be interesting to young activists, and it helps to build a foundation for the next generation to better understand (and help tackle!) these environmental issues.

Create a low-waste lunchbox. 

If your kids are school age, help them to transform their lunchbox into a low-waste lunch kit to help cut back on single-use plastic. Here’s what you’ll need: 

• A set of reusable utensils
• A resealable food storage container 
• A silicone straw (in its own carrying case)
• A reusable water bottle 

Cook simple meals using food scraps. 

When your kids step in to help out in the kitchen, teach them about food waste by collecting and reusing food scraps from previous meals. Save any veggie peels, bruised potatoes, the tops of carrots, and herb stems to use in fun and creative ways in future recipes. Here’s some inspiration: 

• Low-Waste Pulled Chicken Tacos
• No-Waste Veggie Burger
• Low-Waste Fried Rice

Make “dirt” cups. 

Remember your favorite dirt dessert from childhood? Here’s how to make an updated take on this classic pudding cup recipe — gummy worms and all! — with no artificial sweeteners or flavors required. While your little ones enjoy their sweet snack, you can teach them about the importance of soil health. 

Earth Month Eco-Conscious Dirt Cup Recipe

Active time: 5 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes 
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 box Simply Delish Instant Chocolate Pudding
2 cups milk of choice
2 1.8-ounce packets of SmartSweets Gummy Worms
8 Simple Mills Nut Butter Stuffed Sandwich Cookies in Cocoa Cashew Crème

Instructions: 

Make the pudding according to the directions on the package. 

Once the pudding reaches your desired consistency, allow it to cool in the refrigerator to set. 

While the pudding is chilling, crush the cookies using a mortar and pestle, a rolling pin, or something similar. 

Spoon ¼ cup of pudding into individual cups (glass works best so you can see the “dirt” through the sides). (Optional: add a layer of crushed cookies in the center of the pudding for extra crunch). 

Sprinkle the rest of the crushed cookies on top to create the “dirt” effect. 

Finish by adding a few gummy worms to each dirt cup! 

Frequent the farmer’s market. 

To really teach kids about farming and agriculture, a trip to the farmer’s market is a perfect Sunday morning activity. Even the smallest kids can help to pick out fresh fruits and vegetables, and they’re never too young to learn about where their food comes from. 

Teach them to recycle. 

The next time you’re separating the recycling, enlist some little helping hands. Teach kids how to separate plastic and glass bottles, remove any sticky labels, or even break down cardboard (just leave the scissors to the adults!). For older kids, you can also show them how to read the recycling labels and understand what each number means. 

 DIY your own essential oil pesticide. 

Did you know that many essential oils are great natural pest repellents? This Earth Month, teach your kids how to care for plants (or even a whole vegetable garden) by making your own DIY pesticide to help repel critters like squirrels and gophers or insects like mites and millipedes. Try these combinations:

• Canola + soybean oils (repel insects on food crops) 
• Bergamot + citronella + lemongrass oils (repel insects on ornamental plants)
• Castor + mustard oils (repel wildlife and other pests from food crops)