CG Birthday: Celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd
April is not just our birthday month! It’s the month we celebrate our incredible home: The Planet Earth.
What is the History of Earth Day?
April 22nd, 1970 was the very first Earth Day! Proposed in 1969 by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day was celebrated all over the nation in a collaborated effort between grass roots groups and their local governments. Elementary schools did trash-pickup and anti-litter movements. Flowers were planted. People swept their streets. Mothers protested the pollution destroying their children’s air quality.
Did it work?
By the end of 1970, the Nixon administration had established the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Air Act.
Environmental justice gained momentum in New York especially.
Activists increasingly emphasized “environmental racism,” or how toxins and lack of green spaces in poorer neighborhoods disproportionately affected communities of color.
In the 1980’s El Puente and WE ACT formed to oppose environmental hazards like sewage plants and other pollutants that contributed to health disparities, including high rates of asthma.
Many observers have invoked the threat of climate change and pollution during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have pointed to falling pollution levels in cities, as certain industries are on hold and transportation has slowed.
What can you do?
You can educate yourself:
Know what legislation is affecting the environment all the way from your backyard up
Be aware of how climate change is affecting the earth
Read Read Read! Read to your kids too!
Enchanting Science and Nature Books for Kids from Scrawl Books
Over and Under the Rainforest (Hardcover) By Kate Messner, Christopher Silas Neal
Can You Hear the Trees Talking?: Discovering the Hidden Life of the Forest (Hardcover) By Peter Wohlleben
I am the Wind (Hardcover) By Michael Karg, Sophie Diao (Illustrator)
Chase the Moon, Tiny Turtle: A Hatchling's Daring Race to the Sea (Hardcover) By Kelly Jordan, Sally Walker (Illustrator)
Baby Botanist (Baby Scientist #3) (Board book) By Dr. Laura Gehl, Daniel Wiseman (Illustrator)
Weird, Wild, Amazing!: Exploring the Incredible World of Animals (Hardcover) By Tim Flannery, Sam Caldwell (Illustrator)
Over and Under the Pond (Hardcover) By Kate Messner, Christopher Silas Neal (Illustrator)
Start Now!: You Can Make a Difference (Paperback) By Chelsea Clinton
Baby Oceanographer (Baby Scientist #1) (Board book) By Dr. Laura Gehl, Daniel Wiseman (Illustrator)
Volcano Wakes Up! (Paperback) By Lisa Westberg Peters, Steve Jenkins (Illustrator)
You can donate to non-profits that you trust to support concrete improvements. CHARITY NAVIGATOR is a pretty excellent place to check a non-profit’s rating.
Environmental Defense Fund
Mission: The Environmental Defense Fund is perhaps the most wide-ranging organization on this list, working to provide solutions under the broad categories of climate change, oceans, wildlife and habitats, and health. The EDF works with other organizations, businesses, government, and communities to create incentives for positive environmental actions; help companies become better environmental stewards; influence policy; and keep tabs on emerging issues
Top Programs: Climate and energy, oceans, ecosystems
Percent of expenses spent on programs: 79.1
Charity Navigator Score: 94.48The Nature Conservancy
Mission: The Nature Conservancy protects ecologically important lands and waters around the world with the help of more than 500 staff scientists.
Top Programs: Climate change, fire, fresh water, forests, invasive species, and marine ecosystems
Percent of expenses spent on programs: 71.2
Charity Navigator Score: 84.35Natural Resources Defense Council
Mission: The Natural Resources Defense Council seeks to protect the basics—air, land, and water—and to defend endangered natural places, with an eye toward how these long-term decisions affect humans.
Top Programs: Climate, land, wildlife, water, oceans, energy, food, sustainable communities
Percent of expenses spent on programs: 83.6
Charity Navigator Score: 96.35American Rivers
Mission: American Rivers protects wild rivers, restores damaged rivers and the wildlife they support, and conserves clean water for people and nature, with an eye toward recreationists as well.
Top Programs: River restoration, federal river management, clean water supply
Percent of expenses spent on programs: 74.9
Charity Navigator Score: 88.18Sierra Club Foundation
Mission: The Sierra Club Foundation is the fiscal sponsor of the Sierra Club’s charitable environmental programs, and promotes efforts to educate and empower people to protect and improve the natural and human environment. The Sierra Club is the principal, though not exclusive, recipient of SCF’s charitable grants.
Top Programs: Beyond Coal, Chapter and Group Education Project, Our Wild America
Percent of expenses spent on programs: 88.5
Charity Navigator Score: 94.08
How you can celebrate at home
Animal Exercises to do at home with your kids ALL MONTH.
Stock up on reusable bags and try to go a month without using plastic ones!
Plant pollinator friendly local plants in your garden
Walk whenever you can or take public transportation (Keeping in mind Covid-19 precautions)
Use blankets or open windows rather than cranking up the Heater or AC
Pick up trash when you can! Even one piece can make a difference.
Watch Our Planet or Planet Earth to get your kids excited and curious about Earth
Remember everyone, we all share ONE COMMON GROUND. Our little blue planet is precious, and we have to take good care of it.
Love Love Love,
Your CG Family
CG Birthday: Book Fair List for Week of the Young Child
Our Book Fair is Live!! You can access it Here. Any of the books on the website will contribute to our fundraiser so long as you follow the directions on our book fair page.
Not sure what you want to read? No worries! We will be posting excellent book lists all week.
JUST LIKE THIS ONE! See below for recommendations of excellent children’s books for celebrating Week of the Young Child with us.
Music Monday:
Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band
One Love: Music Books for Children
Music: A Foldout History Book
Music Board Book
Tasty Tuesday:
Kids in the Kitchen — A whole Scrawl Books catered book list about cooking with kids.
Work Together Wednesday:
The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room
The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Chores
The Berenstain Bears: Patience Please
I Just Forgot
Art Thursday:
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Red: A Crayon’s Story
Anywhere Artist
A Parrot in the Painting: The Story of Frida Kahlo and Bonito
Family Friday:
Daddies Do
Love Makes a Family
Llama Llama Gram and Grampa
Grandpa Grumps
Grandma, Grandpa and Me
Between Us and Abuela
Just like Mama
All Smiles Saturday:
Birthday at CG: Book Fair
One of the best events that can happen at any school is A BOOK FAIR!! What is a more wholesome way to support your school than to get kids excited about reading?
This CG Birthday Book Fair is being hosted by our local friends SCRAWL BOOKS and it is COMPLETELY ONLINE! Which means it goes 24/7 from Monday, April 12th to Monday, April 19th. You can shop together at home. You can share with your friends and family all over and help them find their new favorite book WHILE earning money for our educator support funds.
All week we will be featuring books with recorded readings, so check out our Facebook and YouTube to see which books our kids like best!
We also have wish lists for each classroom as well as the weekly Summer Camp themes, so check those out as well if you would like to directly support your classroom!
OUR BOOK FAIR IS LIVE! CLICK HERE!!
How does it work? Simple! You can see our recommended book lists on our Book Fair site HERE, but you can also just go to https://www.scrawlbooks.com/ and shop ANYWHERE on the site!
How do we get credit? Easy. Read the instructions below. These are also available on the Book Fair webpage.
Checkout:
Checkout as you normally would, but please note the following:
1. Use COUPON CODE: In order for Common Ground to receive credit for your purchase, you must use COMMONGROUND.
2. SHIPPING METHOD: Choose Common Ground Book Fair.
3. ORDER COMMENTS: Note the name of the student and grade where books will be delivered. If your books are presents and you want them held in the library for pickup please make a note of that (wrapping on book fair orders is not available). Families with multiple children are asked to choose one classroom for order delivery OR place separate orders for each child.
Delivery:
All books purchased through the Common Ground School Book Fair will be delivered to the classroom specified in the order comments, 1-2 weeks after the Book Fair ends.
Please let us know if you have any questions. We are so excited to do this with our favorite local bookstore! Supporting us in the Book Fair is also supporting them, which is amazing, especially during the pandemic.
HURRAY BOOKFAIR!
— Mrs. LJ and your CG Family
P.S. Do you want MORE recommendations? We wrote a fantastic Earth Day post HERE with ten amazing Biology/Environmental books for clever youngsters.
Friends of CG Fridays!: SCRAWL BOOKS (With Exciting Upcoming Events!)
Scrawl Books over in Reston Town Center is a fabulous gem on Reston’s “Shop Local” Crown.
When I found out they were putting in a little bookstore right on the corner of Reston Town Center, I was absolutely delighted. It is within reasonable “Lunch Break” walking distance. It has an amazing selection, and whatever they don’t have they’re willing to order. They support local authors.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, their events promote early literacy and support several wonderful causes. In short? They’re just Good people. Good people doing Good things. And we love having friends like that.
When we contacted them a few years back to do live readings in their store, they were so supportive! They not only let us swipe their stuffy sleepover idea, but they donated items for the stuffy goodie bags!!
On Friday, March 26th, they’re actually doing their own Stuffed Animal Sleepover featuring Children’s Author Ethan Berlin! Children drop off their stuffies for a night of amazing activities, including a reading by Ethan Berlin himself of his new book I am not a Dog Toy.
Sign Up Here if you are interested.
And now, they are going to be doing a BOOK FAIR WITH US in April to celebrate Common Ground Childcare’s 49th Birthday.
When: April 12th to April 19th (LINK INCOMING, STAY TUNED). It is an online bookfair, so it goes 24/7 that entire week!
Where: Scrawl Books will have a page for us on their website, so we will post the link for that when it’s available.
How: We will have recommended books and classroom wishlists on our special link, but you can buy any of the books on the site once you have clicked through! It is not just for kids, stock up on your adult summer reading too!
Why:
- Books are brain food: For our birthday, we are promoting early literacy, consistent literacy, holistic literacy. Reading is good for everyone of every age, no matter what style of book you’re reading. Pick books out for you, your kids, your friends, your family, your school. Pick books out to donate to charity, or for your child’s classroom.
- #ShopLocal: You will be supporting a local business! Scrawl Books is a Reston treasure, and supporting them is supporting your whole town.
- Fundraiser Time: Scrawl books will keep track of how many books are purchased during our book fair and Common Ground will get a percentage of the proceeds! Is there a better birthday present that?
The Pandemic has hit all of our local businesses hard. Right now Scrawl Books is open for curbside pick up and delivery, and we hope that our Covid-19 numbers will go down and enough people will become vaccinated that we can all be together again. Until then, Scrawl Books has agreed to do live online readings for our classrooms on Wednesdays. They are partnering with us and supporting our school. The very least we can do is talk about how wonderful they are, and recommend them every chance we get.
THANK YOU, SCRAWL BOOKS!!
Love Love Love,
LJ and your Common Ground Family