Earth Day Games for Sunday School

Using games can help children understand important concepts.

Earth Day can be a wonderful way to emphasize the six days of creation in your Sunday school class. It can provide you with the opportunity to talk about how each plant, creature and human is created special by God and how each person has a responsibility to take good care of the Earth. Use games to keep your class interested and involved.

Hide and Seek

Before the children arrive, hide small Earth-Day related items around the room, such as a small hand shovel, gardening gloves, packets of seeds, watering can or miniature animal figures. As the children arrive, ask review questions from last week's story. If they answer correctly, allow them to look for an item.

Earth/Creation Poster

Make a large Earth poster. Take a large piece of poster board and divide it up into seven segments. Label each segment with "Day 1," "Day 2," and continuing to "Day 7." Cut out pictures from magazines or use stickers of the sun, moon, stars, plants, flowers, birds, trees, animals and people. Have the children place pictures and stickers in the appropriate segment of the poster board. They can also draw the items in the segments. For example, Day 4 of creation should have the sun, moon and stars pictures. If you have a large class, you can make seven smaller posters, one for each day, and have small groups each work on one poster. Day 7 is empty because on that day, God rested from His creation.

Taking Care of the Earth Scenarios

Take a box of plastic spoons and draw smiley faces on half and frowning faces on half. During class, tell short stories describing how someone either takes good care of the Earth (a child who watered plants, planted a tree or took in an injured kitten) or doesn't take care of the Earth (a child who tears leaves from trees, kicks dogs or throws trash on the ground). Instruct the children hold up the smiley face on the stories where the kids do something good and the frowning faces for when the kids do something bad. End the time by naming ways the children can take care of the Earth, such as watering plants or picking up trash.

Earth Creation Song

Singing with your class is a great way to work out the wiggles and reinforce what you've been teaching.

Sing the song "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands" with new words. Use the days of creation instead. For example, the first verse would say "He's got the light and the darkness, in His hands" and the second verse would say "He's got the sky and the water, in His Hands." Verses three through seven should be "He's got the dry land and plants, in His hands," "He's got the sun, moon and stars, in His hands," "He's got the fish and the birds, in His hands," "He's got all of the animals, in His hands," and "He's got you and me, in His hands" respectively. Use hand motions to mimic water flowing, the sun shining, plants growing, fish swimming and birds flying, and different animals. Point at yourself and each child on the last verse.

Motion Time

For smaller children, having a "motion time" lets some extra energy out while not losing the focus of the lesson. Have the children pantomime planting a tree, watering flowers, raking the yard, picking up trash, and pretending to be their favorite animals. Motion time works best after the children have been sitting still for story time.