Earth Day is celebrated on April 22nd and often gets overlooked in busy classrooms. As teachers, we know April is packed with spring break, test prep season, and the final push toward the end of the school year. With so much going on, fitting in lessons about environmental awareness can feel like just another thing on the to-do list. However, teaching students about caring for our planet is a skill that will stay with them for life.
The good news? You don’t need to overhaul your lesson plans to include Earth Day! With these Earth Day themed reading passages, you can seamlessly integrate Earth Day learning into your regular reading instruction—without sacrificing precious classroom time.
Why We Should Teach Earth Day In The Classroom
Earth Day is a great opportunity to teach our students about our planet Earth, environmental responsibility, and real-world problem-solving. Even at a young age, our students can learn that their small actions, like recycling, turning off the lights when we are not using them, and reusing old materials for craft projects, helps protect our planet. Plus, you can incorporate Earth Day activities into your literacy lesson plans to reinforce key reading skills in a meaningful way.
What Are The Benefits Of Teaching Earth Day In The Classroom?
- Teaches real world problem solving: Students will learn how small actions make a big impact.
- Encourages environmental responsibility: Students will develop awareness of their role in protecting the Earth.
- Integrates science and reading: One way to fit science into our day to day activities is to integrate it with our reading lesson plans.
More About Our Earth Day Reading Comprehension Worksheets
These free Earth Day reading comprehension passages are designed for for 1st grade and 2nd grade students (and possibly 3rd grade students as well). They also:
- include informational text to teach your students about Earth Day
- include main idea practice: students must identify the main idea of the nonfiction passage
- help students continue to practice identifying nonfiction text features: each nonfiction passage include nonfiction text features which students must then color code
- include comprehension questions for students to answer about the reading and check reading comprehension skills
- include an answer key for easy checking for you!
How To Use These Passages in Your Classroom
These reading passages can be used in numerous ways to benefit you and your students. They can be used for:
- Morning Work: Begin the school day with a quick reading and comprehension check.
- Close Reading Activity: Use with your whole class to dive deeper into the information.
- Small Group Reading: Use these passages with your reading groups for targeted comprehension practice.
- Independent Work: Some of your students may be able to do these activities independently
- Paired Reading Activity: Pair students together to read and answer the questions.
- Homeschool use
Why Use These Reading Passages
Using these reading passages is a great way to continue your typical reading lesson plans while also learning about earth sciences. When using these nonfiction reading passages, you will teach your students the importance of Earth Day and taking care of our planet. There is a graphic organizer for main idea, schema, and asking and answering questions to go along with each passage.
About Each Passage
Earth Day
This passage teaches students when Earth Day is and ways to care for the Earth. Did you know the first Earth Day was in 1970? Well, now you do and your students will too! This passage comes with:
- 4 comprehension questions (2 short answer and 2 multiple choice)
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
This passage teaches students what reduce, reuse, and recycle means and how these three things can help the Earth. This passage comes with:
- 3 comprehension questions
Taking Care of Our Planet
This passage focuses on three simple ways we can take care of our planet. One way is to reduce the amount of water we use so that we can continue to drink clean water. Another is to plant a tree. Another is to turn off the lights when we are not using them and how electricity we use contributes to climate change.
- 3 comprehension questions
Download your free Earth Day passages here.
More Fun Activities To Learn About Earth Day
To further your teaching of Earth Day, here are some more fun activities to do with your students.
1. Earth Day Color By Code Worksheets
These color by code sheets are another fun way to incorporate Earth Day into your day to day learning. Our color by code sheets include both phonics and math skills for first grade and second grade students. Phonics skills include: silent letters, prefixes, suffixes, vowel teams, digraphs, and ending blends. Math skills include: addition within ten, subtraction within ten, addition within twenty, subtraction within twenty, 3-D shapes, and telling time to the hour. This is an easy way to add an Earth Day activity to your day without taking away from typical classroom learning!
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2. Recycling Sorting Game
This is a simple activity you can add into your day with little effort but high reward! Bring in real items and let students sort them into reduce, reuse, and recycle bins. This is a tactile activity that will help students understand how to make the world a better place!
3. Take learning outside if you can!
As long as the weather permits, take students outside for a nature walk or to learn outside! Another idea is to do a read aloud outside.
4. Sign an Earth Day Pledge
With your class, create an Earth Day pledge. Either create one together and have your students sign it or have students write or draw one thing they will do to help the Earth.
5. Use These Writing Prompts
If you have been on my blog before, you know I love a good writing prompt. Here are five writing prompts to use the week of Earth Day to continue to boost writing skills:
- Think of one thing you want to work on or do to take care of our planet. What is it? How will you make sure you do it?
- Write an acrostic poem using the words “Earth Day”. Or use other Earth Day words like recycle, reuse, reduce, etc.
- Pretend you are a tree about to be cut down. Convince everyone why you should stay and not be cut down.
- Write the steps for how to plant a tree.
- Pretend you are the Earth. How do you want people to take care of you?
10 Picture Books To Read For Earth Day
Continue to build literacy skills with these picture books on Earth Day.
- One Plastic Bag by Miranda Paul
- What If Everybody Did That? by Ellen Javernick
- The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
- The Earth Book by Todd Parr
- What A Waste: Trash, Recycling, And Protecting Our Planet by Jess French
- Thank You, Earth by April Pulley Sayre
- Our Planet! There’s No Place Like Earth by Stacy McAnulty
- Bruce Saves The Planet by Ryan T. Higgins
- The Night Before Earth Day by Natasha Wing
- Dino Earth Day by Lisa Wheeler
Download Your Free Earth Day Reading Passages Today!
Ready to make Earth Day a meaningful learning experience for your students? Download these free Earth Day worksheets and start using them in your classroom today! Click the link below to grab your free Earth Day activities.
By incorporating these simple, engaging reading activities into your lesson plans you can teach students valuable environmental lessons without disrupting your daily routine! Happy Earth Day!
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