Little kids naturally love the environment. They love to go outside and do things like ride their bikes, go to the playground, or anything else that involves getting some fresh air.
Their love of spending time outdoors is also a great way to teach them to love taking care of the environment.
For the little ones – just starting pre-school and up to a few years older – this is a great time to introduce them to entertaining children’s books and play activities about preserving the environment.
I came across a great site from Simon and Schuster called Little Green Books that has wonderful resources for teaching young children – in very easy to understand ways – about things like:
- Recycling and repurposing stuff around the house.
- Gardening and learning how things grow.
- Endangered species and their habitats.
- Global warming in kid-friendly ways.
The site has a lot of fun features. Among them are three free interactive games that teach about recycling, endangered animals, and gardening.
The first game is called Recycle Away!, and this is how you play:
- There are three recycling bins with the labels – cans and bottles, plastic and glass, and paper and cardboard.
- The player has to use the mouse to put five items into their proper bins – they are: a newspaper, a cardboard box, a glass bottle, a plastic bottle, and a can. When the player does it correctly, they win!
The next game is called WHAT DO YOU SEE?, and this is how you play:
- You help the little girl find the endangered species. The player reads the description of the animal at the bottom of the page and uses the mouse to select the picture of the correct animal above. On the correct selection, the game says ‘great job’, the animal disappears, a new description appears on the bottom, and the process continues until all the animals are correctly selected.
The third game is called PLANT YOUR OWN GARDEN, and this is how you play:
- You help a little girl and her mom with their garden. On the top of the screen, you see successive scenes with a mother and her daughter pulling the tops of vegetables out of the ground. Above each of them are pictures of different whole vegetables. For each scene, the player has to click on the correct matching vegetable, and then the vegetable automatically moves to the basket. This continues until all the vegetables have been correctly selected.
All of the games are a lot of fun and very educational for the kids!
The Little Green Books site also has free printable workbooks that also teach about recycling, repurposing household things, practicing simple energy saving ideas, gardening, animals and their habitats, and the concept of a carbon footprint in a way that’s fun and easy to understand. Theses worksheets are great as personal home activities or for teachers to use at school.
The site has a great collection of 13 books that are an ideal way for parents to begin introducing their children to the idea of helping the environment. The books range in comprehension and reading difficulty from toddler age to third grade.
Three of my favorite books from the collection are:
- Don’t Throw That Away!: Lift-the-Flap Book about Recycling and Reusing
- Just like its name implies, this book is about taking old household items and finding new purposes for them, like turning an old box into a new toy car, and other craft projects. It’s a great book for getting craft ideas to do with the kids. It’s also great for teachers and class projects. This book is suggested as ideal for ages four-to-six.
- Easy to Be Green: Simple Activities You Can do to Save the Earth
- This book has a lot of coloring pages, tips about saving the planet, and easy activities kids can do help the environment like recycling, composting, and writing letters to their local politicians. The activities have varying levels of difficulty, and the book is suggested for ages four-to-eight.
- Santa Claus Is Green!: How to Have an Eco-Friendly Christmas
- This is a wonderful holiday book. It has great ideas for going green during the season, including: making Christmas decorations, making presents instead of buying them, turning off the tree lights before bed, and after the holidays are over, taking the tree to the community mulching center. This book is suggested for ages four-to-six. This book also comes with 20 fun eco-stickers.
All of the books in this collection are made with either 100 percent or some percentage of recycled paper. They are all also printed with either vegetable or soy ink.
Besides all this, the Little Green Books also has a blog with some great information, including a Q & A section talking about how to recycle batteries.
The site also a section called The Big Green Help linking to a ‘green’ Nickelodeon site, which also has online eco-games, a Q & A with LeBron James, a message board, and a link for eco-grants for schools and community organizations. There are two grant links – only the one in green letters works. I suggest taking a look at both sites. They’re both fun and have a lot of great resource information.
Reader comments are always welcomed!