Earth, Elements And Me – Toddler Tales Day 5

Do you always wonder how you can contribute meaningfully to this society and community. Well here it us how you can do it.

It is always depressing to see the amount of waste we produce in a day. Some of these wastes can definitely be reused, recycled or upcycled. Our changing lifestyle especially the new technological advancements in communication, manufacturing and transport has imbalanced the ecology of the Earth.

It’s time that we did a little part to restore the balance, slow the global warming, go back to farming and green living. The flashy and luxurious lives comes at a cost and our toddlers will be left with no real beauty if we don’t take some steps today to help create a lifestyle that supports Earth and healthy living.

Introduce globe and our planet Earth – Earth and Me DIY Alert

Human is an infinitesimal part of this universe. To understand our true place in this world and the power we have over mother nature our toddlers need our support. Let’s do a DIY to help them understand our true place.

Steps :

• Use the free printable for direction and cut out the circles
• Punch a hole in a circles at 1cm from edge
• Thread, tie, ring, straw bind the circles in ascending order of size
• Draw baby and house on the smallest circle
• Draw state in the next circle. Then country, continent and finally the largest circle should show Earth.

Show the globe and help your toddler understand how the largest circle in 2d becomes globe in 3d format. Help them find your country and closely point city. It’s an entertaining task. Plus toddlers love to spin the globe. They might even find new places and question about countries. Be prepared to answer as many you can.

Go Green with plants

1. Grow some plants in your home. Start with a bamboo shoot or money plant or ferns

2. Let your kids water the plants every day. Soon it will become a habit for them and they will start caring about plants, grow new ones and might as well gift to others

3. Upcycle old water bottles, milk cans, milk or yoghurt buckets to make a tools stand, potholder or a bird feeder

4. Upcycled or reuse milk cans, cookie jars, smoothie jars to create DIYS vases

5. Stop using paper napkins instead use cotton towels like when we were kids because softer the paper the more trees get cut

6. Reuse delivery baskets and boxes to shelter small plants or make something creative

7. Share your toys and shift to wooden or cloth toys

Create sensory bins to learn the Elements of Earth – air, water, soil

The idea of creating this activity is to bring a small piece of life on Earth and its experience on earth closer to your child. I will share some examples for hints.

Steps to create a sensory bin

1. Get a sheet or spread to avoid spoiling the flooring
2. Decide on a base to create your sensory bin. It could be a tray, container, bottle or anything which is sturdy
3. Choose and your element of earth like beaches sand, kinetic sand, soil from garden, stones, food grains like rice, wheat, kidney beans, water, jelly balls, leaves, paper crumbs etc
4. Get your toys, flowers, figurines, brush, spatula, spoons
5. Get to playing. Use five senses as guide to creating sensory bin. Create a vision of colours for eyes, a palate of textures for fingers to touch, use some spices and plants like lemongrass, lavender, roses, basil to tingle that tiny sense of smell, well when it comes to tasting ensure you give a good home cooked meal along with the sensory bins

Hope you liked this simple three step introduction to Earth, it’s elements and healthy lifestyle.

Please wash your hands and stay safe. Maintain social distancing while you engage in one of the Diys and games we are sharing everyday.

It is important to stay mentally strong in this hour so do some breathing and meditation, or perhaps its time you started teaching yoga to your kids.