My favorite holiday is coming up! Earth Day is held every April 22nd. Are you ready to celebrate our incredible planet?
It’s particularly an important time to stop and engage in our natural environment because spending time in and around nature is so beneficial to our family’s health and well-being. It calms us when we are feeling stressed and boosts our mood when we are feeling down. Although many of us are still social distancing, there are still plenty of fun, meaningful ways to show our support and love for our precious planet. Check out these Earth Day virtual activities!
Spend Time Learning
There are so many ways to get your kids excited about environmental issues. Many of us are looking for ways to keep our kids busy these days, so take advantage of this time to teach them new skills and explore new ideas. Read books; recite and write nature poetry; watch environmental shows and documentaries; take virtual and in-person trips to nature centers, gardens, and scenic destinations; and participate in online science education programs.
Be sure to check out both my parenting book, Finding Ecohappiness: Fun Nature Activities To Help Your Kids Feel Happier and Calmer, and children’s book that I co-authored, Sky’s Search for Ecohappiness. They are the perfect reads for Earth Day!
Host a Virtual Earth Day Party
Earth Day is a great excuse for a virtual party. You can send an online invitation, get a group together through a number of online platforms, and celebrate our planet together. Some activities that you can do together online include: making an eco-craft, reading environmental poetry or books, writing letters to elected officials to support the environment, and playing nature-themed games like charades or jeopardy. You could even have everyone give a tour of their backyards or do a backyard scavenger hunt. My daughter’s birthday falls right near Earth Day. In 2020, her party was originally scheduled to be at a marine life nature center. Fortunately, the director still did a live animal show for her and her friends online and they absolutely loved it.
Join an Online Earth Day Event
Everyone is getting creative now and going online. Look out for environmental-related Facetime Lives, webinars, and online Summits for your family to enjoy. Lots of libraries are still offering webinars that you can tune into from anywhere. You can also search earthday.org for events.
Make an Earth-Friendly Feast
Every celebration needs a delicious meal, right? Take this opportunity to spend time together in the kitchen cooking a nutritious meal that supports our planet–whether that means vegetarian, vegan, or organic to your family. By savoring nature’s bounty, you can stop and appreciate how much we rely on the Earth to provide the many nutrients we need to stay healthy, both physically and mentally.
Support Environmental Organizations
When we give to others, we feel better and experience what is known as a helper’s high. Spend some time this Earth Day choosing one or more environmental organizations (local, national, or international) to either join or send a donation to. Some of my favorites include Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Ocean Conservancy, and Earthjustice. There are also a few groups specifically for moms that are doing amazing work: Moms Clean Air Force, Moms Rising, Mothers Out Front, and Climate Mama.
Shop Sustainable Businesses
This is an excellent time to support both local and national sustainable businesses, whether it be your neighborhood organic grocery store or large corporations with a history of doing incredible environmental work like Patagonia and Rothy’s. Not sure where to shop? Check out the B Corporation directory to identify green businesses.
Take the Ecohappiness Challenge
During the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, I started a daily Ecohappiness Challenge. It was the best way I knew how to manage my stress and anxiety during that unprecedented time. I tapped into the power of nature to feel calmer and happier by finding one way every day to connect to nature. These activities range from reading nature poetry with my kids to going for a mindful bike ride in my neighborhood to taking awe-inspiring virtual field trips to view nature online. You can now download your own FREE 30-Day Ecohappiness Challenge Calendar filled with activities that can be done from inside your home, on your balcony, or in your backyard. Let us know what you and your family are doing to connect to nature.
How will you celebrate Earth Day this year?
Great post! Last year, for Earth Day, I had artists from a local outside Sculpture museum come to the library where I work to talk about the recycling they do as part of their program. I will be looking at following some of these suggestions for myself in 2020. Thanks for the suggestions!
I love the idea of celebrating Earth Day by making an earth friendly feast with vegetarian food. Love all the suggestions you offer on Earth Day celebratory events.
Come back and share your recipes.
Great ideas for celebrating Earth Day with kids! We’ve been focused on learning about sustainability and how to reduce climate change impacts as a family so this is a good reminder of things we can do to be eco-conscious!
I’ll probably use it dreaming about our family’s next camping trip Actually, I’m ready to do some virtual National Parks tours. I think it would be good for our whole family.
This is great!! The earth day party is awesome! I was looking for some ideas and may have to implement that with a few other kiddos virtually.
Such simple things and all great ways to help our earth . Joining an online event is a great idea!
I’ve always tried to be environmentally conscious. So I’ll definitely be checking out that B Corporation directory to shop smarter.
As a gardener I support the earth every day, however, I was part of one of the first Earth Day rallies when I was in college. Great tips. Thanks.
That is really cool!
Wow, great thoughts! Thanks for the ideas!
There are some truly wonderful tips on celebrating Earth Day! thank you!!
Love these ideas. I am
thinking of virtual garden and museum tours.
I love your resources here! Pinning this so I can come back to it. So much to explore. I’m interested in your 30 day challenge too!
Great post! And how amazing it is for Earth Day to be happening right now, as the Earth
has this breather to heal itself. Iove all of these ideas. Thank you for sharing!
I love this! I’ve been thinking about how to celebrate Earth Day from home. Thank you!
Love the ideas for how to celebrate Earth day. I hope to spend the afternoon outside and to do a few fun crafts with my little while we talk about taking care of our planet.
Earth Day is the best day every cause it reminds all of us to clean our planet earth. Great article.
Great ideas! I really hope to teach my kids more about this as they get older.
I love Earth Day! Such great tips on how to celebrate it, the right way.
Better to focus on what we can do right now, not on what we cant. Your post has given so many great suggestions for doing just that, very empowering.
I had no idea that this year is going to be the 50th anniversary. You have some great ideas here – I think taking the time to celebrate is SO important, especially for those who have children that would normally have the opportunity to learn about Earth Day at school. This is a great chance to teach them about environmentalism and how to respect the world that they live in!
Love all of these ideas for Earth Day and everyday really! Especially as we social distance, I’m so thankful we can go outside and enjoy nature.
I have a personal challenge to try and cut back on my garbage footprint. For one, I hate taking out the garbage. I know it factors into my footprint. So far I have reduced my electricity bill and have had some reduction in plastic. It’s a slow process for me but one I want to do more of. We have a recycling company in the capital. It isn’t too far from me only my area hasn’t often into it and I wish we did. It would make our dumpsters less full. I am hoping my company starts doing refills on some products. A few customers have asked about it. We should at least have a recycling program. We are already vegan friendly in most products.
Super! Let us know how it goes. It’s definitely a challenge to reduce garbage, especially with the whole family at home now.
These are great tips, I especially love the books selection for young readers. 🙂
So true, we should do at least something from the above mentioned points. Really awesome post!
Knowledge is the key, right? These are fun and practical ways to educate others on how to do safe things for our environment.
These are great ideas! I have been intentionally showing the kids documentaries on wildlife rather than just let them watch cartoons. There’s so much for them to learn about the world we live in. Thanks for your great ideas!
These are some great ideas. I try to live a green life. And I love to hike in the forests around my home town. I hope that I have instilled these things in my children. They are grown now, but I see an appreciation for nature in them. Thank you for this post. I think it is important to teach our children to care for the planet.
I’m going to get a Buy Nothing group organized in my area. Do you know about them? I just wrote about them on my earth month post here: Tucán Dream April Is Earth Month </a
Some great ideas for Earth Day.
I love the ideas of joining online Earth Day celebration and hosting an Earth Day party. I think my students would love it.
I love the idea of having a virtual earth day party. This is so good for the kids with eco crafts and coloring pages. What a great way for them to learn about Earth Day.
Love these earth day crafts! We’ll be making some blue & green slime for earth day too! We just did DIY terrarium necklaces to learn about the water cycle and have a fun spring craft that I think would be fun for Earth Day too!
This is so cool, I love this. Deff would like to join a virtual event. Thank you for the info!
Such cool ideas to be reminded that we must protect our environment at all costs. I celebrated the Earth day by sharing my essentials tips to maintain a sustainable living on a budget.