Just as you want to protect your skin from harsh disinfectants, so it’s important to protect delicate caterpillars and
butterflies from airborne chemicals and surface residues.

Here are some RECOMMENDATIONS to protect your insects and other classroom pets from harm:

COVER the caterpillar cups or butterfly house with a large box or plastic container – whenever disinfectants are being used in
the classroom, cover your insects to protect them from sprays and harsh chemicals.

COVER OVERNIGHT – it’s best to use a breathable fabric like a pillowcase if cleaning takes place in the evening.

MOVE the caterpillar cups or butterfly house to a cupboard or storage closet to minimize the impact of cleaning procedures.

Switch off your lights for an hour on Saturday, March 27, 2021, at 8:30 pm your local time.

There are all kinds of things you can do for a memorable and fun experience all from the comfort of your home!

• Switch off your lights for 1 hour
• Candlelight dinner
• Board games in the dark
• Indoor scavenger hunt
• Shadow puppet play

Started by WWF and partners as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now one of the world’s largest grassroots movements for the environment. Held every year on the last Saturday of March, Earth Hour engages millions of people in more than 180 countries and territories, switching off their lights to show support for our planet. 

Learn More – https://latest.earthhour.org/earthhour-at-home

Celebrate Planet Earth is delighted to be working with International Paper through its Community Engagement Program. In March, April & May, we’ll be sending more than 4500 Butterfly & Sunflower Classroom Kits to elementary schools in 26 states. Many children will be observing butterfly metamorphosis for the very first time. They will learn the body parts of insects, record data of the 4 life stages, and read stories about the life cycle of butterflies.

Build your students’ science vocabulary with our Butterfly Word Wall. More than 25 words related to butterflies, insect body parts, and pollination. Free for educators. 8-1/2×11 print-out. Enrich your classroom’s butterfly science with our wonderful Word Wall. Download it here – https://celebrateplanetearth.org/learning

We have FREE downloads of our Butterfly Labs for PreK, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, & 5th grades. The Labs are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and focus on insect body parts, pollination, life cycles, insect sensory organs, & food webs. There are word walls, background information, handouts, & more. Visit Learning on our website.

We are delighted to offer our new Nature Library to children and classrooms from coast to coast. Kids receive 4 books — 2 English-Spanish storybooks, Oh Look, A Butterfly! & Every Seed Counts and 2 day-by-day science guides, Butterfly Celebration Journal & Sunflower Celebration Journal. The storybooks and science guides enrich the experience of raising caterpillars and growing sunflowers.

Get ready for spring STEM lessons with our Sunflower Handouts, including sprouting experiments, a word scramble, an observation journal, a coloring page, & more. Visit https://CelebratePlanetEarth.org/learning to download.

We’re ready to send out caterpillar cups, butterfly kits, sunflower seed packets and more to classrooms, preschools, Sunday schools, and homeschoolers. We’re very excited to offer new items — the Take-Home Caterpillar Mini-Cups, which can be sent home for online classes and comes with 25 mini-cups of live caterpillars & 25 butterfly care brochures. Another new item is our Nature Library — 2 bilingual storybooks & 2 science journals that enrich K & 1st grade children’s experience of raising butterflies and growing sunflowers. A wonderful addition to support reading skills & connect kids to the natural world.

Learn more at CelebratePlanet Earth/shop/

Every purchase from Celebrate Planet Earth helps support reforestation in 5 indigenous communities in eastern Ecuador through our conservation partner, Yakum. Native trees are being planted to provide traditional foods, medicines, and handicraft materials. Yakum is also training young forest guardians to map more than 59,000 acres of forest. In addition, Yakum has responded quickly to the pandemic, providing fast-growing food plants like plantains and tubers, and traditional medicines like ginger and garlic in areas where food supplies and incomes have been disrupted. Learn more at https://yakum.org

Imagine One Million Sunflowers growing across the country, feeding butterflies, bees & birds, giving delight to everyone who sees them! Learn more at CelebratePlanetEarth.org #onemillionsunflowers #celebrateplanetearth

Join the community of families who are planting ONE MILLION SUNFLOWERS & celebrating the EARTH this spring!

Please help us SPREAD THE WORD.

It’s a great way to be a part of the 50th ANNIVERSARY of EARTH DAY!
You can celebrate AT HOME. Sunflowers can be planted in a flowerpot or in a garden.
BUTTERFLIES, BIRDS & BEES love sunflowers! The more sunflowers we plant, the more we will help POLLINATORS everywhere they grow!

GET A PACKET OF GIANT SUNFLOWERS SEEDS >

We received a GREAT IDEA from Lange School in Dayton, Ohio! Take your butterfly lessons online! Teachers are taking the live caterpillars home & teaching their butterfly lesson plans online. They are using photographs and video to share the transformation of the caterpillars with their students at home.

Teachers are welcome to POST their butterfly photos & videos at: https://celebrateplanetearth.org/share-your-love/. You can SEE the stories of students & classrooms here: https://celebrateplanetearth.org/stories/. We have lots of FREE curriculum materials at: https://celebrateplanetearth.org/resources/. Teachers will find background & handouts on body parts, life cycles, word walls, pollination, food webs, senses and more.

Wow, this is the power of working together to love and protect our home!

According to House Beautiful – “Planting bee-friendly flowers is definitely an easy way to help keep our buzzing friends alive, and the sunflower is the perfect option for a summertime plant. They’re rich in nectar, and are the perfect color to attract bees—the flying insects actually can’t see reddish tinged colors, so sticking with yellow, blue, white, and purple flowers are especially helpful.

Sunflowers need optimal sunlight—around six to eight hours a day—and thrive when they grow in hot summer climates.”

Read more – https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/gardening/a27545572/save-the-bees-plant-sunflowers/

Walk barefoot on green grass! Wade in a stream! Hug a tree! Every single day – Celebrate Planet Earth! #celebrateplanetearth

It’s so important to join together and take the Planet Earth Pledge as a class, a club or a family. It helps remind us of what it means to love and protect the Earth. And here is a PDF poster so you can hang it on a bulletin board or wall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/us/migrating-painted-lady-butterflies.html

What a wonderful article from the Sunday New York Times – 3/17/19! If the painted ladies are migrating into warm Southern California in record numbers than they will probably start arriving in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas as those states warm up. Seeing your first butterfly every spring is a great reason to celebrate Planet Earth!