Free Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Printables and Activities for a Montessori-Inspired Earth Day Unit

I love Earth Day! I have lots of free reduce, reuse, recycle printables and activities here for an Earth Day unit. But I plan to use them long after Earth Day. I hope you do, too! The Earth Day Every Day slogan needs to become more of a reality in our world.

As usual on the 15th, I have a new themed pack … a Montessori-inspired reduce, reuse, recycle pack for our newsletter subscribers’ resource library!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Montessori Shelves with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Themed Activities

You’ll find Montessori-inspired reduce, reuse, recycle numbers, letters, and and more (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

You could mix your reduce, reuse, recycle themed activities among your shelves according to curriculum area. Or you could have a special reduce, reuse, recycle themed area something like the one pictured. My shelves at the beginning of our unit have a mixture of skill levels mainly from preschooler through early elementary. Many of the activities can be adapted for a variety of levels. If you’re a homeschooler, just choose the activities that work for your child’s interests and ability levels. If you don’t have room for all the activities you’d like to do, simply rotate them.

While it doesn’t show on the shelves, we’ll be using this free printable: Alphabet Hike by Katie Rogers at Teachers Pay Teachers. Nature walks are one of the ways we can get outdoors in our neighborhood during social distancing. We’ll be doing a neighborhood alphabet scavenger hunt this month, searching for objects for letters of the alphabet in nature.

Montessori Book Basket and Shelves with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Activities

Even though I have books on shelves, I keep the main Montessori-friendly books for our current theme in a book basket by the themed shelf. You’ll find a few of the books I’ve used here. I’ll publish an Earth Day book post with more details at a later date.

Notice the framed Claude Monet Water Lilies print. It’s a free download from Wikimedia. We featured Claude Monet last month, but I couldn’t resist featuring his beautiful nature work for Earth Day!

For our monthly featured art print, I purchased a Li’l DAVINCI art frame that opens in the front for easily changing a free art masterpiece printable or vintage illustration to fit with the month’s theme. The frame can be switched from horizontal to vertical without changing the hanger, which is perfect!

Earth Day Books with Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Sort

Earth Day Books with Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Sort

We’re using a variety of Earth Day books this month, including the Montessori-friendly books 10 Things You Can Do to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, S is for Save the Planet (part of a series of alphabet books that’s a favorite of mine), and What a Waste.

Free Printable: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Sort by Primary Playground for Simply Kinder

This activity was super-easy to prepare. I simply printed it, cut it out, and placed it on a Multicraft tray.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Sort

You can do the layout more than one way for the reduce category (as you’ll see in the post at Simply Kinders). I like to use it as reducing driving, reducing the use of electricity, and reducing use of water with alternatives to the right.

Environment in Danger Pages from Picturepedia

On a wooden cookbook holder, I have DK Smithsonian Picturepedia (beautiful photos and a fabulous reference book I use for many, many units!).

Free Printable (in the background to the right of the book): Earth Day Math Game, Addition, Multiplication Facts, 100’s Chart Review, Freebie by Cathy Ruth at Teachers Pay Teachers. It’s a variation of snakes and ladders that’s a fun way to review math facts. I typically try to keep the themed activities on one shelf, but I sometimes have one or two on other shelves if I run out of room. Generally, though, I just rotate the activities.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Salt Writing Tray with Alphabet Cards and Waste Management 3-Part Cards

Free Printable: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Letter R font cards for Salt Writing Tray (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

Free Printable: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Alphabet Cards in Manuscript and Cursive ((part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

Free Printable: Waste Management 3-Part Cards by EduGrow at Teachers Pay Teachers

For the salt writing tray, I used the wooden tray from the Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Shapes. I have a new sand writing/spelling tray that I usually use now, but this fit better on my shelf this month. You can use whatever tray or container work best for you, though. I simply colored salt by putting some Wilton gel food coloring in a plastic bag with the salt and shaking it until it was mixed thoroughly.

If you would like help with introducing phonetic sounds, introducing objects with sounds, or beginning phonics in general, check out my DIY Beginning Montessori Phonics with Preschoolers.

The alphabet cards can be used for matching letters, spelling words, or reinforcing cursive writing.

The waste management 3-part cards will be especially fun for my 2-year-old grandson, Caleb, who’s in love with anything to do with trash, garbage trucks, and recycling! You can just use the pictures for matching with toddlers and young preschoolers while older children can match or read the words as well as the pictures.

Earth Day Sort

Free Printable: Earth Day Sort by Teaching in Progress at Teachers Pay Teachers

In the far right corner of the middle shelf is the Earth Day Sort. It’s a great reading and discussion-promoting sorting activity for children who can read quite well. I’ll be using it with my 6-year-old granddaughter, Zoey.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Cards and Counters

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Cards and Counters Tray

Free Printable: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Numbers (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

I like to make DIY themed cards and counters to introduce odd and even and add interest and variety to cards and counters. I love the look and feel of glass gems for a variety of activities, so I often reuse them. You need exactly 55 glass gems or other counters if you want to do the numbers and counters 1-10.

Young children generally also love glass gems. They’re so pretty and fun to touch. (Note: Be careful with glass gems around children who still mouth objects since they’re a choking hazard and very inviting. With toddlers, I don’t leave the glass gems on the shelf and only have the glass gems available when I’m directly working with the child.)

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Cards and Counters Layout

Recycling Addition and Subtraction Activity

Working with Recycling Addition and Subtraction Facts

Free Printable: Earth Day Pack for K-2nd from Royal Baloo

For any facts that need a quick reminder, I like to use the numberline board from FamilyTreeWW at Etsy. Not only is it beautiful, but it’s fun to use! And it’s such a fast way to confirm math facts.

While I use a variety of addition and subtraction manipulatives for younger children along with Montessori bead bars and addition and subtraction boards, I like using the numberline board for children who are to the stage of memorizing math facts.

Free Montessori-Inspired Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Pack

Montessori-Inspired Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).

Free Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Printables

I’m no longer publishing a list of free printables from other blogs for each theme. Many of the free printables get changed to paid printables or to subscriber freebies with new links. So it just became too difficult to keep all those links updated while adding new ones each month. Instead, I’ll be sharing many free Earth Day printables (along with a few other types of free printables throughout our unit) as my Free Printable of the Day at our Living Montessori Now Facebook page. For the Free Printable of the Day, I try to share only instant downloads and other free printables that don’t require signing up for a mailing list. I also share each of the Free Printables of the Day to my Free Printable of the Day Pinterest Board.

Of course, be sure to check the activities above for links to the free printables I used. Those are typically instant downloads, although I’ll sometimes use a subscriber freebie from someone’s site. And I feature our subscriber pack for the month!

More Earth Day Resources

Amazon Affiliate:

At PreK + K Sharing, I have lots of themed activities and presentation ideas. Please join me at PreK + K Sharing to see all my posts there over the years: Deb Chitwood at PreK + K Sharing.

Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!

The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.

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