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Earth Day is a perfect opportunity to spend extra time crafting with our kids and talking about the importance of conserving our planet.
As the expression goes, every day is Earth Day. However, that is more than a saying in our house. Like most families, we recycle. We use reusable grocery bags. We also try to find clever ways to reuse items and reduce trash.
My children and I also have daily conversations about conservation and other ways to help keep the Earth beautiful, such as cleanup projects, releasing ladybugs and butterflies or planting a garden or trees.
But on Earth Day, I always go above and beyond by planning something a little special. Over the years, I have hosted numerous Earth Day play dates that included crafts involving trash to reduce and reuse once discarded items and games that taught the importance of recycling.
With our friends, we danced and sang songs that celebrated our beautiful plant. We explored our backyard world with nature walks, collected any litter we stumbled upon and made collages with beautiful natural treasures items we found along the way.
With such fondness, my children recall the games and the nature walks with our friends, however, they have a special place in their hearts (or perhaps their tummies) for the dirt cups we made at our annual Earth Day play dates.
I realize that using small pudding pots may appear hypocritical to the whole thought behind Earth Day, but a lesson in conservation always followed this tasty treat.
After we enjoyed our small Earth Day dessert, we always found a clever way to reuse the small pudding pot. For example, they make wonderful mini planters for seedlings.
ALTERNATIVE: If you don’t want to use plastic pudding pots, another way to make these dirt cups is to make a batch of chocolate pudding yourself and then construct the “dirt cups” in other regular cups that you already own.
Ingredients
- 1 four-pack Jello chocolate pudding
- 10-12 Oreos
- ¼ sweetened shredded coconut
- Green food coloring
- Gummy worms
Instructions
- In a small bowl, add a 2-3 drops of green coloring to shredded coconut. Mix until well coated and green. Set aside.
- Add Oreos to a Ziploc bag and smash with mallet until crumbly. Add crumbles to chocolate pudding.
- Top Oreo crumbles with green coconut. Add a one or two gummy worms to “grass”, burying the tail into the Oreo “dirt”.
What types of foods do you use to teach your children about conservation and Earth Day?
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L. Schurman says
Some cups are also recycleable and there are now compostable clear cups available (got mine on Amazon).
Ned says
such a cute looking dessert.. easy to make too! and so apt for the Earth Day!
Stephanie says
These are so super cute! I need to make some of these for my kids!
Lauren says
I love this idea — really cute! I think the pudding cups are recyclable. Or, you could put the pudding in little glass cups if your little ones are old enough/capable enough to handle those.
LeeAnn says
What a fun (and super easy to make) dessert! And what a great, easy to understand Earth Day lesson with the reuse of the pudding pots.