Storytime Standouts’ Earth Day Printables Help Children Learn About the Environment, Recycling and Other Ways to Care for Our World

Our early literacy printables, including our Earth Day printables are in PDF format, if you don’t already use Adobe Reader, you will need to use it to access the downloads.

Please note, the photograph on this page is subject to copyright and was taken by Carolyn Hart.

Some of our early literacy printables including our free Earth Day printables are available to Storytime Standouts members only. To become a member of the website (without cost or obligation), please click on the “Members” tab and register as a user.

We also have a new page with resources about gardening with children.

Earth Day / Recycling Domino Game and Board Game Cards

Print these game pieces onto cardstock and them cut them apart. For the board game, recycle paper scraps to create a fun game board. Playing pieces promote recycling and environmental awareness as players race to the end.

  "Green" Domino Game
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  "Green" Board Game Cards
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Earth Day Interlined Paper

– beginning writers can use our interlined paper to tell stories about Earth Day

  Interlined Paper - Children Love the Earth
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  Interlined paper - Recycling Boy and Girl
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  Interlined paper - Tree with bluebird
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  Interlined Paper - Tree including roots
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Earth Day Riddles

– print the questions and the answers. Cut them apart and then challenge children to match the questions with the answers.

  "Green" Riddles - Part 1
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  "Green" Riddles - Part 2
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Gardening-Related

  Planting a Flower Garden Sequencing Activity

  I Love the Flowers

  A Little Seed

Be sure to visit our page highlighting
picture books about caring for our environment,
ecosystems, recycling,
reducing our environmental footprint and more.
Terrific resources for Earth Day and Arbor Day.

If you appreciate our free early literacy printables,
including these Earth Day printables,
please support this site by visiting and purchasing from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.

Children enjoy matching upper and lower case letters with this fun activity

This is a great time of year to pick up the makings of an inexpensive, colourful learning aid – at your neighbourhood dollar store. Easter merchandise is starting to appear and we want the multi-coloured two-part Easter eggs. Normally these are filled with candies but we are going to do something altogether different. We are going to use a permanent ink pen to print an upper case letter on one half of an egg and and the corresponding lower case letter on the other half. Children really enjoy searching through the ‘broken’ eggs to find a match ultimately assembling twenty-six whole eggs. I like the activity because using five or six colors makes finding a match fairly easy and also makes the activity somewhat self-checking.

For older children, compound words, rhyming words or antonyms could be used.

For more ways to help children learn the alphabet, check out our fee alphabet printables and our page about alphabet recognition.

A word of caution: This activity is not intended for children younger than age 3. Also, to ensure the activity is safe, please use eggs that are large enough to eliminate a risk of choking. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has determined: ‘Any ball with a diameter of 1.75 inches (44.4mm) or less that is intended for use by children younger than 3 years of age is banned.’ This is an excellent guideline – please check the size of the eggs before purchasing them.

Cooking and baking with kids is worth the mess

This is a wonderful time of year to engage young children in baking and cooking. Although messy at times, baking with kids and preparing yummy treats to share with others will create memories to last a lifetime – for you and your children. I remember creating sticky and lopsided gingerbread houses with my young boys. I think they ate more of the “decorations” than they actually managed to attach to the houses! Another year, we helped Grandma bake cookies because she was recovering from a stroke and couldn’t manage by herself. The kitchen was a disaster afterwards but the laughter, memories and delicious goodies more than compensated.

Kids in the Holiday Kitchen is a fun holiday book that is sure to inspire you and your children. Offering recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desserts as well as craft ideas, the photographs will have you reaching for cookie cutters, rolling pins and icing sugar.

Meet the authors and hear about the book on “You Tube”

Kids in the Holiday Kitchen: Making, Baking, Giving at Amazon.com

Kids in the Holiday Kitchen: Making, Baking, Giving at Amazon.ca

Note Storytime Standouts has many free Christmas printables – You will find our Christmas songs, rhymes and fingerplays here, Christmas interlined paper here and Christmas words with pictures here.

Try some of these strategies to help your child with reading comprehension

• Before opening the cover of a book, take a moment to talk about the cover art and encourage your youngster to make some predictions. Do you suppose this will be a scary story or perhaps a silly one? Do you think this book will be like something else we have read together? Do you recognize the illustrator’s style and/or the typeface? Savvy readers will recognize that Stella Fairy of the Forest and Houndsley and Catina are both illustrated by Marie- Louise Gay although the characters are not the same.

• Once you have read partway through the book, pause to talk about it. Involve your child in making predictions about what will happen next. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom offers more than a couple of opportunities to guess what will happen to the letters of the alphabet. If a character is facing a choice, ask your child what he would choose and why.

• At the end of the story, take a moment to talk about the characters. Which character does your child like best? / least? Does this character remind him of a person he knows or another book you’ve read together?

• Try reading more than one version of a fairy tale or other familiar story. Compare the illustrations and the author’s words. Which version of the story do you like best? / least?

• Try reading wordless picture books. In these books, all or almost all of the story is told through the illustrations. Wordless and almost wordless books are great because they “level the playing field.” Your child becomes an equal participant in carefully “reading” the illustrations and deciding what is happening in the story. Wordless and almost wordless books are also great for young children to share with someone who does not read in English. They are also valuable because they offer an opportunity for your child to use visual clues when retelling a story to someone else.

• Speaking of  “retelling,”  having an opportunity to retell a story is great for young children. Perhaps after you and your child enjoy a story together, your child could summarize the story for another adult.

• Finally, matching a book to an upcoming event or experience will help your child to make connections between the story or information in the book and his own experience. Whether reading a story about a visit to the dentist prior to an appointment or laughing about No David’s misadventures, making connections is what it is all about.

Beyond Bedtime Stories by V. Susan Bennett-Armistead, Nell K. Duke and Annie M. Moses

Beyond Bedtime Stories is a very thorough exploration of ways parents can promote early literacy with young children. The authors address dozens of important questions like “What if a book contains words or ideas that I find offensive?” and “Should I teach my child to read before kindergarten?” Beyond Bedtime Stories also includes suggestions of ways to fill your home with books even if you are on a budget, how to improve comprehension and ways to promote literacy inside and outside your home.

This is a very worthwhile resource for young families, daycare and preschool settings.

Beyond Bedtime Stories: A Parent’s Guide to Promoting Reading, Writing, and Other Literacy Skills from Birth to 5

Beyond Bedtime Stories : A Parent’s Guide to Promoting Reading, Writing, and Other Literacy Skills from Birth to 5 at Amazon.ca

I’ve been having some fun this week. I grabbed my camera and headed out on a hunt for environmental print.

Environmental print is print that is all around us. In our home, it is on food packaging and on other products we use. In a public building it is on door handles (PUSH, PULL) and above doorways (EXIT), when we go for a drive, it is on road signs (STOP), vehicles (POLICE, AMBULANCE), buildings (DRUG STORE) and in other public places (PARK, GARBAGE, RECYCLE).

For a preschool or kindgergarten-age child, who is anxious to read his first word, environmental print may be “just the ticket.” Head out for a walk and see how many words your child can “read.” In all likelihood, he will already know how to read “McDonalds” or “Starbucks.” Can he use context clues to correctly “read” more of the words around him? Can he “read” a situation and use the information he sees to make a correct guess about enviromental print?

When you go out with your child, take a camera with you. Take pictures of environmental print. When you get home, help your child to make an environmental print book to read. You can be sure he will be excited to show off his ‘new words’ to Grandma or Grandpa.

Food packaging and pictures from advertisements are more great sources of environmental print. Work with your child to put together a collage or scrapbook to read and enjoy.

Our free #1 Environmental Print printable for young children

  Environmental Print 1
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Our free #2 Environmental Print printable for young children

  Environmental Print 2
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There are some fabulous environmental print resources online, here are some of our favourites
Sharon MacDonald’s page about environmental print.

Mrs. Horner’s Environmental Print Alphabet (PDF)

Environmental Print Games – including Bingo from Canada’s National Adult Literacy Database

Read Write Think – From Stop Signs to the Golden Arches: Environmental Print

Logos from GoodLogo.com

Candy Bar Wrapper Image Archive

Some of the keys to learning to read are noticing sounds in words (developing phonemic awareness), recognizing letters of the alphabet and understanding words.

Next time you’re in the car with your preschool or kindergarten child, spend a few minutes talking about sounds and words. Informal chats like these, can have a huge impact on her phonemic awareness and readiness for formal reading instruction…

Listening For Sounds at the Beginning of Words
‘Here are some words that begin with the /b/ sound’ (Note: you should use the letter sound rather than the letter name) ‘boy, ball, bicycle, bat.’ I am going to say three words to you, can you tell me which one does not begin with /b/?’

(1) baby, ladybug, bumblebee
(2) shovel, bucket, blanket
(3) basket, apple, bird

Listening For Rhyming
‘Here are some words that rhyme: bat & cat, ring & spring. Rhyming words are words whose endings sound the same. I am going to say two words to you, see if you can tell me if they rhyme.’

(1) king & ring
(2) up & down
(3) black & stack

For more ways to help your child develop phonemic awareness, follow this link to visit our Phonemic Awareness page.

Discovering Meaning
‘These words are opposites; in & out, wet & dry, awake & asleep. Listen to my words. Are they opposites?’

(1) black & white
(2) yes & no
(3) sad & crying

For more ways to help your child with reading comprehension, follow this link.

Two of the components of a child’s reading readiness are his/her comprehension and interpretation. We can assist a preschool or kindergarten child with reading readiness by providing opportunities for him to read pictures and consider the sequence of events.

Reading pictures includes noticing what is in the picture, what the characters are doing, the weather or time of day and other details (i.e. the color of a character’s clothing). We would also like children to interpret the scene: what do you think the girl is saying? or why do you think the dragon is angry?

Wordless picture books are great tools for helping children to develop comprehension and interpretation skills. Sequencing activities also provide children the opportunity to ‘read’ pictures and determine the order of events.

Here are links to three sequencing activities from my website and three from elsewhere on the internet.

  Building a Snowman Sequencing
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  Planting a Flower Garden Sequencing Activity

  Valentine's Day Sequencing Activity
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DLTK’s Story Sequencing Activities

Early Learning Printables

For additional information about comprehension and reading readiness, follow this link to our page about reading comprehension.

For wordless picture books, follow this link to our wordless picture book posts.