Thank you so much for dropping by! Today’s post is a collection of our family’s favorite ways to celebrate Earth Day. We would be so honored, fellow earth-lovers, if you would join dirt-covered hands with us as we teach our children to care for creation! This endeavor is foundational for *Holistic Education* —nurturing the whole child in mind, body, and spirit as we teach them to cultivate the earth in much the same way.
Coming Down to Earth
Posters, petitions, and pomp and circumstance don’t (by themselves) add one drop of oxygen to the atmosphere or remove one piece of plastic from a landfill. A little less talk, and a lot more action, please! Friends, Romans, Earth-Lovers . . . let’s stop environmentally pointing fingers and instead dig in with them! If we don’t have dirt under our own fingernails, then what right do we have to throw any at our neighbor?
Saving the earth starts with cultivating any piece of it we can get our own two hands on, and then equipping and encouraging others to do the same. We must put to practice sustainability on our own soil before demanding it to be applied to someone else’s plot!
We would be wise to remember that gentle rain and sunlight help seeds to germinate, not wind or harsh heat. A hand-delivered basket of rainbow-ripe produce from our backyard will do far more to inspire a “coming down to earth” than will incessant harping about bees, butterflies, and soil depletion.
Better yet, by gardening with our kids we can serve the earth in the present even as we sow seeds of sustainability for the future!
The best way I know for our save-the-planet-cause to truly take root, grow, and flourish is to plant it in the heart of a child. That means digging in the dirt, together! And who knows, maybe the neighbors will see.
Let’s dig in . . .
🪱How to make a WORM COMPOST FARM with your kids!🪱
Ok, stop squirming! And whatever you do, don’t try to worm your way out of this activity! It’s fast, easy, so much fun, and I promise it really isn’t gross at all!
A little Q & A before we inch into things!
Q: Why worm compost?
A: Worm composting is a dream.
- It’s EASIER than regular composting . . . by a lot.
- It takes far LESS SPACE; worm composting only requires the space of one storage tote.
- There is NO TURNING necessary.
- Results are way FASTER than regular composting. The worms break down food scraps so quickly, your compost will be ready in no time!
- Your worms will reproduce in the bin and you will have EXTRA WORMS to add to your garden in just a few months time!
Q: Eeep! Do I have to handle the worms?
A: No, you do not have to touch the worms if you don’t want. In fact, it is better for the worms to be left alone as much as possible . . . a difficult concept for my seven-year-old son.
Q: Can we do this activity if we live in a neighborhood or apartment?
A: As long as you have a cool (40 to 80 degrees), somewhat dark place to keep a storage tote of dirt and worms, you can worm compost basically anywhere! Make it an incentive to purge a tote full of junk!
Q: How long does this activity take?
A: Less than an hour. Seriously!
Q: Is it a lot of work taking care of your worm compost bin?
A: Not even a little bit. We feed our worms a bowl full of collected food scraps each week (mostly used tea leaves and coffee grounds which are so easy to come by around here), bury them in the soil inside the bin and . . . that’s it! We’re talking less than two minutes of care each week. Easier than goldfish and ten times as prolific!
Q: Doesn’t it . . . stink?
A: Actually, no! I was worried about this as I am incredibly sensitive to smells and we are keeping our bin in our basement. After three weeks, I am happy to report that our worm farm is stench free. In fact, as weird as it sounds . . . our worm compost bin actually smells kind of good! Think like fresh soil after a rain. Ahhhh. After all, we’re designed to love those healthy, micro-organism abundant, earth-rich aromas. Moderate moisture levels if needed, use fresh food scraps, and there is no reason you should find your worm compost bin offensive.
Worm-Composting in 10 Simple Steps:
1.) Order your worms.
Make sure to order RED WRIGGLERS. That is very important. Night-crawler worms apparently can be very territorial? I know, that made me laugh! Also, they tend to feed on fungus mostly while red wrigglers devour food waste like nobody’s business (half their body weight PER DAY! Creation is crazy cool.)
We ordered our Red Wrigglers from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm, and we give them two thumbs up! Our worms arrived looking sketchy just as Uncle Jim warned us they would, but within a day they were thriving fit to make a mama cringe! Just keep that lid closed and let your kiddos feed the worms! That’s what I’m doing anyway.
2.) Clear out an old storage tote.
Any tote will do. You just need one with a working lid. Give it a little hose out or wipe down.
3.) Invite friends and neighbors!
We made a Homeschool Skill School Day out of it and invited some friends over to join in the Worm Day fun! It was the best.
4.) Hand your kid(s) a drill and let them go crazy!
Oh my gosh, the kids loved this so much! I’m going to have to think of more Drill Skill Days! Seriously, if we had let them, these drill-happy kids would have nearly destroyed these bins.
Instruct your kiddo(s) to drill a ton of holes in the tote lid, a few dozen in the base, and another few dozen around the body of the tote in the upper half higher than the worm habitat will be.
Here’s a great youtube video you can watch with your kiddos prior to this step if you want! This is a kid-friendly tutorial that we followed with James Prigioni:
5.) Fill with 6-8 inches of soil or compost.
This is a great job for even the littlest earth-lovers! Hand your little one a scoop of some kind and let them dip and dump to their heart’s content.
6.) Check the moisture of the soil.
Feel your dirt or compost, squeezing it in one hand. If it is dry and just spilling like dust out of your hand, sprinkle lightly with water and retest. If the soil feels wet, add shredded newspaper or something greener like dried leaves, dry dirt, or dry potting soil.
7.) Add your worms and set a feeding day!
Gently add your worms to their new habitat, put a lid on it, and set the bin on another tote lid or piece of plastic in case of leaking. Put the bin in a cool (40 to 80 degrees), dark, sheltered place. Set a reminder on your calendar or phone to feed your worms once a week and start saving those food scraps following these dietary guidelines:
- avoid salty, acidic, or fatty foods (basically just fruit and veggie scraps + used tea leaves and coffee grounds)
- avoid citrus
- chop finely and store in fridge so they don’t spoil
8.) Weigh your scraps and feed your worms!
Collect food scraps each day as you cook into a stainless steel metal bowl and store it in the fridge. When it’s time to feed your worms, weigh your collected scraps.
How much to feed your worms each week: feed worms half of their body weight for each day of the week, but only feed them ONCE every seven days (doesn’t have to be exact).
- 3 ½ pounds for 1000 worms
- 1 ¾ pounds for 500 worms
- just under a pound for 250 worms
How to feed your worms:
- cut up food scraps finely
- dig a small trench on one side of the bin and bury the scraps (next week switch to the opposite side and rotate each week)
9.) Monitor moisture level of soil at feedings.
If the soil is wet, add dryer food scraps plus dry leaves, newspaper shreds, dry dirt, etc.
If the soil is very dry, simply sprinkle with water or consider a wet food scrap such as used coffee grounds.
10.) Split your habitat or spread your worms!
As the worms reproduce you will need to either: divide the habitat into two bins, adding more soil and continue with a two-bin system, or you can regularly deposit a handful or three of worms and soil out to your garden to continue their earth-magic independently! It’s entirely up to you. Our son plans on expanding to a twenty-bin system. Dream on little guy! Unfortunately for him, I think two bins is this mama’s max number at this time.
Print out our Worm Farm Compost Cheat-Sheet!
Tape this reminder sheet to your worm habitat tote so you don’t have to go searching for this post at feeding time!
THIS is what our Worm Compost Bin looks like after just three weeks! I moved my hand around in there a little bit and the worms have tripled and quadrupled in size. I’m guessing they have started reproducing as well. My cup runneth over with . . . worms? Ok, moving on.
We started with plain old dirt, as we didn’t have developed compost on hand at the time. It’s not hard for us to tell that the look, feel, and smell of this soil has improved dramatically! We can even taste the difference. Just kidding! At any rate, we are super pleased with the results so far and hope to have a worm compost bin working for us in the basement forever!
🌎7 More Ways to Celebrate (and cultivate) Earth Day with your Kids!🌍
Whether you celebrate just one day, one week, one month, or Earth-it-up all 365 . . . today I have for you some simple, grounded ways we can serve and honor creation with our children!
1.) Reading the Creation Story + other Earth-Celebrating Books
2.) Skill Schooling with us in the Garden!
Day 1: Can You ⛏️DIG IT?
Day 2: HUNGRY DIRT😋! Easy, instant compost activities for kids!
Day 3: 🌿Weed, Water, Watch, and Wonder!🌻
Day 4: 🐞MINISCULE GARDENERS🐝 of bees, butterflies, worms, and ladybugs!
3.) Listening to Our Earth Day Playlist
4.) Making this Erik’s Deli-Inspired 🥑20-minute Plant-Based Dinner 😋!
*Just three ingredients and minutes to make!!!
5.) Taking The Miss Rumphius Challenge!
Let’s each commit to “do something to make the world more beautiful.”
6.) Making this Earth Day Vegan Chocolate Mousse!
7.) Observing Nature for a morning or afternoon
either in stillness:
or on a nature walk:
Happy Earth Day Week Month . . . YEAR!
For the beauty of the earth,
for the splendor of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies.
Christ, our Lord, to thee we raise
this, our hymn of grateful praise.For the wonder of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale and tree and flower,
sun and moon and stars of light.
Christ, our Lord, to thee raise
this, our hymn of grateful praise.For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth, and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild.
Christ, our Lord, to thee we raise
this, our hymn of grateful praise.For yourself, best gift divine,
to the world so freely given,
agent of God’s grand design:
peace on earth and joy in heaven.
Christ, our Lord, to thee we raise
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint (1864)
this, our hymn of grateful praise.
Thanks ever so much for reading, dear friends!
Love, ~Our Holistic Homeschool~
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