Excellent Ways to Approach Earth Day in your ESL Classroom

Celebrated annually worldwide on 22^nd April, Earth Day focuses on the protection of the environment. Whether this is formally included in your school’s curriculum or not, it is certainly something about which all children should be taught. Here are five excellent ways to incorporate Earth Day into your ESL classroom, supporting the learning of English while encouraging your students to consider their impact on the world around them.

Poster Making

Making posters is a fantastic way to combine creativity with the use of the English language that they have acquired. Using our Earth Day vocabulary mats for the key words and phrases necessary, you could set your students the task of creating a poster to encourage others to do simple things to make a massive difference to the environment. In addition to the poster creation, you could expect the students to present and explain them to the rest of the class to challenge further.

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Boom Cards

We talk about Boom Cards a lot here at a Teachable Year, and that’s because they are so engaging for your students. Our FREE I Can Help the Earth pack contains cards that are not only easy to use (almost no preparation needed!), but they are also highly rated by many ESL classes. These cards work on tablets (including iPads), laptops and desktop computers. They are also self-marking, and you can track your students’ progress easily. These cards present students with a statement linked to an ecological issue. They need to consider it and then decide whether it helps the environment or not.

Recycling

Getting creative doesn’t always need to have any sort of writing incorporated into it for it to be a meaningful learning activity. Singing is one way of using talents to practise the spoken English language. We adore this recycling song called We Recycle (to the tune of Frère Jacques), which would be perfect for Earth Day.

We recycle

We recycle

Yes, we do

Yes, we do

Caring for our planet

Caring for our planet

You should too

You should too!

In conjunction with this song, bring in some old packaging from home (or ask your students to), and use these to sort into things that can be recycled and things that can’t. Additionally, you could sort the recyclable items further into categories, such as glass, paper and metal.

Vocabulary Activities and Worksheets

While we love activities where students can be up and about, moving around while they are learning, sometimes you need a quieter lesson for students to consolidate the vocabulary they have learnt. Our extensive vocabulary pack will be perfect for that scenario. With 25 worksheets that require absolutely no preparation except printing, you can be confident that we have something for everyone’s needs here. From labelling activities to sentence writing, your students will be able to show off their ESL learning linked to Earth Day easily.

Flashcards 

Our FREE flashcards pack is the ideal accompaniment for your Earth Day lesson planning. Entitled Go Green, this pack comprises both colour and black and white versions of 36 flashcards. While they could be used to build up children’s vocabulary, they could also be used in a more structured way. Provide your class with a sentence starter, such as To help the environment, I could... Additionally, they could also provide advice to others using a similar structure. Considering the importance and significance of our actions on the world around us is a key thing to learn early in life. Discussions could be had around which would have the biggest positive impact.

In conclusion, teaching about Earth Day in the ESL classroom is a great opportunity for students to learn about their environment and how to take care of it. By utilizing hands-on activities such as creating Earth Day art projects or playing interactive ESL games, students can gain knowledge about environmental topics and also have fun at the same time. Through meaningful discussion and engaging activities, students will be able to learn more about our beautiful planet and why it is so important to care for it.

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