Earth Day Celebration and CRAFT

I'll admit I was a bit belated in our acknowledgment of Earth Day.  Saturday and Sunday were so grey...no sight of the sun...the brilliant greens and blues and yellows that I typically associate with our planet just weren't top of mind.

Thankfully Monday was much brighter, and this mama was much more creatively inspired.

We started our discussion with Curious George and the Rocket, and how George travels into space.  The girls and I looked online at a few satellite pictures of the Earth.  We talked about the blue water, the mostly green continents, and the white clouds.  We compared those pictures to the world map that we look at every day.

I had the girls use watercolors to paint the back side of a small white paper plate.  I encouraged them to use mostly blue, with some green and purple, if they'd like, to represent the oceans.  I reminded them that any white spaces would look like clouds.

Baby A followed directions almost exactly.  B got a little more free-form with her colors, incorporating some red, brown, yellow, and black...perhaps a representation of what the world might look like if we don't take better care of it...ACK!

I had cut 1/2" squares of light green tissue paper that I thought would stick to the wet paint to form the land masses.  It didn't adhere like I'd thought, though, so I told the girls we'd continue our project later in the day, after the paint dried.

The next morning, we again looked at the online pictures, and I told the girls I was going to "draw" some continents on their globes with glue.  Piece by piece, they filled in the glue outline with the tissue paper.






I absolutely love the way these turned out...particularly how the glue shows through the tissue paper in places, creating some cool shades and textures. 

 

We also talked about ways to take care of the Earth.  I was impressed that the girls named a long list of initiatives for their daddy at the end of the day, including...recycle, don't waste, no cigarette smoke (which was an example I gave of pollution...HA!).