Talking about our planet is mighty big concept for a 4 yr old to grasp. So I decided to start small with an easy art activity for kids. Why not break the whole saving the concept into small idea which we can start at home. Art activities are a wonderful way to ease kids into a very complicated concept for a preschooler- We are talking about Earth Day. If the whole idea is to create awareness, then this can be considered “Mission Accomplished”.

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• A chart paper – I used one fourth the size.
• Water colors – thinned out with a tiny amount of water.
• A straw
• Collage materials

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We used the blow paint technique for most of this art project. We have made cute and simple Valentine day cards in the past using the same technique.

To start our project, I thinned out some water colors with a little bit of water.

I placed a few drops of brown paint on the sheet of paper and we just blew on it with a straw in an upwards angle.

This Earth Day activity which was also an easy art activity gave us a good opportunity to talk about trees. We simply started to talk simply about the morphology of a tree and moved on other ideas later.

Coming back to the art activity, if you need more trunk add a another couple of drops and keep blowing with a straw until you reach the desired height. Simple isn’t it? Now to add the leaves we simply used our index finger. Good old finger painting, dot-dot-dot ! How easy is that?

It isn’t an earth day activity until we make a full-blown scene. We went on to add grass, clouds and the sun to create our simple art project and that created  room for another conversation about the importance and what do they do for us.

So now for the big question. How do we explain the importance to a four yr old? Why is it important to save our trees?

1. Trees/plants are important because they provide us food – talk about an activity that you have done as a family, apple picking or vegetable gardening.

2. Talk about how trees provide shelter for the birds and critters.

3. You can create many trunks and create a forest scene and talk about deforestation.

 4. Importantly we have decided to make every day Earth Day and not wait until a special holiday to bring these things up. There are so many chances to talk about new ideas casually during walks, play time, oh-so-many drives in the car..

Finally our earth day art project all finished up.

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