Did you know that April showers bring more than May flowers?

Don’t get caught off guard this coming Friday — April 1 is April Fool’s Day! Every year I seem to get caught off guard when one of my young students says, “Mrs. Pinyerd, there is a spider on your back!”

I fall for it every single time because I do know that spiders are a part of nature but I want spiders to stay in their natural habitat and not on my back. Other holidays this month are April 2, International Children’s Book Day; April 3, Find a Rainbow Day; April 6, National Day of Hope; and April 22 is Earth Day.

The theme of Earth Day is something about which I wanted to share some thoughts and information with our community families. I hope the following helps to teach your child to be a good steward of our Earth and to learn to respect others.

How can we start teaching our young children to learn to take care of our Earth? Through different arts and crafts activities, children also learn to observe, create, and remain in direct contact with their world. Early childhood teachers are famous in teaching their young students the three R’s of recycle, reuse, and reduce. Someone else’s trash is a teacher’s treasure in arts and crafts.

• Recycle: With recycling, homes now have recycling bins to be carried out with the regular garbage. Throw cans, plastics, bottles, and newspapers in the recycling bins so they won’t end in landfills.
• Reuse. We moms who have raised young children are used to reusing materials.
• Instead of buying a lot of new materials such as bags, keep your grocery bags to be used over and over for storing items. Thoroughly wash out and sanitize empty gallon milk or orange-juice jugs to be used again for another round of lemonade, apple juice and other drinks. Keep those toilet tissue, paper towel spools, and shoe boxes to be used for early childhood crafts. Keep newspapers to actually to be used for gift wrap for birthday presents.
• Reduce. It is important to stress to young children to be good little stewards of what they have. Gently remind them to cut off lights, not to leave water running, and not to be “litter bugs” inside or outside. Get them in the habit of safely picking up trash when they see it.

Clean, protect, enjoy our beautiful world!

Beth Pinyerd lives in Daphne and serves as director of younger children at Faith Family Fellowship in Spanish Fort.

Her column appears regularly in The Bulletin.