Last Thursday was EARTH DAY, undoubtedly overshadowed by coronavirus this year but still a global celebration that is now in its 50th year. 

On 22 April 1970 – the very first Earth Day - 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks and theatres to rally for environmental education, with many universities and colleges also taking part. Over time, Earth Day was an opportunity for environmental groups to come together with a shared voice and bring many environmental concerns onto the front page. 

As the years have passed, raising awareness of environment issues has become more and more important; the fight for a clean environment goes on alongside the realisation that climate change will affect us all.  To read more about Earth Day and how it started, click here.

Earth Day is now marked by more than one billion people every year as a day of action and a call to change human behaviour. A huge part of this is teaching our kiddies how to do the right thing - not to fill their heads with doom and gloom - but to educate them on how to lead an eco-friendly lifestyle and inspire them to care for our planet. 

With our country still in lockdown, children at home and many parents desperately hunting for activities to keep their kiddies occupied, entertained and (hopefully) educated without resorting to dreaded screen time, here are a few eco-related related activities it might be worth trying… 

• Go for your daily exercise walk and do a nature ‘scavenger hunt’. Check out these ideas from The Woodland Trust. 

• Make a poster, reminding your household how to be more eco-friendly, this could be saving water when brushing teeth and saving energy by turning off the lights when you leave a room. Click here for some great ideas to get you started. 

• Build an insect hotel which is easily done by filling a small box with grass, pine cones and other similar items and leaving it in the garden. Check out this fab guide from the RSPB. 

• Plant a tree or build a terrarium - an enclosed indoor environment for plants – this can be done using an old glass jar or vase. Click here for more ideas. 

• If you need a rainy day activity then check out this link from the team at BBC Wildlife Magazine highlighting the best wildlife streams to watch from around the world. 

Inspired by Earth Day (and to avoid doing his writing task for the day), my 9 year old son decided to make his very own ‘It’s Our Planet Too’ board game this week. His aim was to build a game where the character counters - who are all endangered animals - had to travel around the board avoiding the usual threats to their species, including hunters and lack of food! We threw a little maths into the mix by making our very own giant dice too… Why not make your own? 

If you’d like to download your own print at home version of his game, dice and characters, just click here to sign up to the It’s Our Planet Too newsletter.