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MaryAnne at Mama Smiles Welcome to my blog! I'm MaryAnne, and I write about building a rewarding family life through mindful parenting, hands-on learning, and creative family activities. Learn more.

Growing Grass and Other Earth Day Learning Activities for Preschoolers

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Growing grass and other Earth Day themed learning activities for preschoolers.

Growing grass and other earth-themed learning activities for preschoolers.

This week’s Virtual Book Club for Kids pick is The Earth Book by Todd Parr, paired with an Earth learning theme. You can also read What Does It Mean to Be Green for this week. All of the activities are wonderful ways to celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd.

Growing Grass: A Fun and Easy Earth Day Themed Preschool Science Activity

We have grown grass as a preschool science activity for years now. Grass is easy and fun to grow, making it the perfect preschooler science activity. The year I took these photos (2009), the grass even survived three-year-old Emma and one-year-old Johnny dumping out the cups of newly-planted grass seeds and then throwing everything back in topsy-turvy.

MATERIALS:

STEPS:

  1. Fill cup with soil, leaving at least 1 inch of clearance at the top.
  2. Add a thin layer of grass seeds.
  3. Cover the grass seeds with a small amount of soil.
  4. Water.
  5. Place in a sunny area.
  6. Wait for seeds to grow.

Grass is the perfect plant for preschool botany, because it is incredibly hardy. This year is the perfect illustration of this hardiness, because Emma’s cup of grass seed was dumped all over the floor within an hour of being planted.

spilled-dirt-gardening

I swept up the dirt and dumped it back into its cup. I thought it wouldn’t grow, but I was wrong. Here is the poor destroyed grass plant surviving five days later:

grass-growing-kid-science

And thriving two weeks later. You have to look twice to tell which cup was dumped out and which one was left alone!

toddler-science-growing-grass

Kids love giving their grass plants “haircuts” – perfect for practicing scissor skills.

preschool science growing grass
More Earth Day Learning Activities

Here are some more wonderful Earth Day themed learning activities for preschoolers!

THE 2016-17 VIRTUAL BOOK CLUB FOR KIDS

2016-17 season virtual book club for kids books and activities

Click on the image above to see all of the themes, books, and activities for this year’s 2016-17 Virtual Book Club for Kids! I am updating the page as new posts go live.

What is your favorite way to celebrate Earth Day with kids? Please share in the comments below, or on my Facebook page. You can also tag me on Instagram. Sign up for my newsletter to receive book recommendations, crafts, activities, and parenting tips in your inbox every week.

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Comments

  3. We are growing (from seeds) a little basil and mint in pots on the windowsill. Abby loves to check the progress every day!

  4. We really need to do that. Lewis would LOVE it (especially the grass haircutting part).

  5. Wow, that grew really fast! What a neat activity! Our tomato seeds started to sprout, and I cannot wait to get out and do some gardening soon!