Happy Earth Day!  What are you doing today to celebrate our planet?  Every year, the students and staff at The Hope Institute head outside to plant trees on campus property, and luckily we’ll have a beautiful day for doing so.  I’ll also be singing the “Good Green Earth” song I shared in my latest Sunday Singalong video as well as another Earth Day-appropriate song, “The 3 R’s” by Jack Johnson.

One of my very favorite albums (which just happens to be full of great songs for kids) is Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the film Curious George by Jack Johnson.  In fact, I even Friday Fave’d it last winter.  “The 3 R’s” is a take on “3 is a Magic Number” from Schoolhouse Rock, but it incorporates the “reduce, reuse, recycle” theme we all learned in grade school.  Check it out:

Three, it’s a magic number,
Yes it is, it’s a magic number.
Because two times three is six,
And three times six is eighteen,
And the eighteenth letter in the alphabet is R.
We’ve got three R’s we’re going to talk about today:

We’ve got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

If you’re going to the market to buy some juice,
You’ve got to bring your own bags and you learn to reduce your waste.
And if your brother or your sister’s got some cool clothes,
You could try them on before you buy some more of those.
Reuse, we’ve got to learn to reuse.

And if the first two R’s don’t work out,
And if you’ve got to make some trash,
Don’t throw it out.
Recycle, we’ve got to learn to recycle,

We’ve got to learn to
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Because three, it’s a magic number,
Yes it is, it’s a magic number.
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36
33, 30, 27, 24, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, and
3, it’s a magic number.

I love Jack Johnson’s cool, laid-back attitude; his California surfer style fits in with Earth Day perfectly!  I’m curious to find out what everyone else is singing on this special day, so please do tell.