Earth Day!

Not all teachers celebrate Earth Day which really is a shame. After spending Earth Day with Haley Alvarado's kindergarten and watching how excited the children were, I was asking why we couldn't incorporate Earth Day into our curriculum every year, so that every child had an opportunity to learn how to protect our Earth!

Haley's kiddos came dressed in recyclable materials. They were so excited to show off their designs! Their creativity was staggering! From recycling fairies to superheroes, the children certainly got the message. They started the morning with a book about recycling that would be just part of a larger collection of books on the topic that would be read during the day. Then it was outside for a
recycling relay. Haley dumped a large pile of "clean" trash (is there any such thing?) and the children formed two teams. The first person in each line found something in the pile that was recyclable, ran to put it in the recycling bin after explaining to an adult what it was made of and then back to the next person in line. The kids learned so much including looking for the recycling sign!

Back inside, the children wrote letters to Mother Earth. There assignment was to let Mother Earth know what they were going to do to make a difference. Some of the children took this very seriously and came in this morning telling us what they were going to be doing at home to help the Earth... and isn't that what this is all about? Jack's letter is a great example of what the children wrote.

April 22, 2010

Dear Earth,

I am going to be a

planet protector. I will

recycle and reuse things

and stop cutting trees.

I will plant more trees

and flowers and won't

throw stuff away

when it will be in

there for 800 years.

From,

Jack

In the afternoon the children painted their balloon-shaped Earths as they chatted about all the ways they were going to protect their precious Earth. Their conversation was amazing. They were even mad that other people who didn'tunderstand and weren't doing more. They pledged to become planet protectors. It was obvious that they understood what the day was all about and what their teacher was so passionately trying to teach them! A seed was planted today. May it be watered and fertilized for many years to come.

The First Grade Recycing Project

I have to admit that I am not a recycler. I don't have a good excuse really - I'm just not.

But we do have a first grade teacher, Haley Alvarado, that is passionate about saving our Earth and has been talking for a while now about getting a recycling program started at Chets Creek. When she first started talking about it, I thought it should be pretty easy - Recycling - Schools - should be an easy match. I was wrong. Nothing about getting the program started has been easy. Haley has made dozens and dozens and dozens of phone calls and has probably put hundreds of hours into the project by now. Haley's not a quitter. She has been quite determined. Good thing, because it certainly has taken perseverance! She wrote a Walmart educational grant and recently started working with a UNF group and so... Chets Creek first graders had their first "green" assembly last week. Haley introduced the children to the idea of recycling paper (in a school - imagine how much paper we can recycle?) and plastic. She provided each classroom with a recycling bin... and so we are off.

While I have never recycled (I always used those green bins for extra storage in my garage), I do promise to give this a try and to at least do what I expect our first graders to do. (I did actually purchase one of those cloth bags from Publix recently because I was taking fruit to school for a morning meeting and didn't want Haley to see me bring it in one of those "will be with us for a million years" plastic bags!) I'll let you know how it goes!!

Environmentally Challenged

I’m bloggin today about the environment because bloggers around the world are uniting just for today to blog about the environment, and I like the idea of being a part of something much bigger than myself.

Of course, I guess that means that I have to admit that I’m not really very environmentally aware. I think Ed Begley is somewhat of a kook – him and his green self - and I’m not really ready for a “draft Gore” movement. However, several things have happened this week that make me know that I am really out of touch - environmentally challenged. Haley Alvarado, Chets Creek Teacher of the Year, suggested that I quit giving everyone extra copies of the vocabulary unit to edit because we needed to save the trees! She is also on a one-woman crusade to help Chets Creek learn to recycle. I have to admit that I’ve never used one of those green recycle bins for anything except extra storage. It looks like Haley, with help from Debbie Harbour and our Science Wizards, is actually going to get recycling off the ground.

Then last week, Elizabeth Conte pulled 5 pieces of paper out of the trashcan in her kindergarten class at the end of Writers’ Workshop. She fussed at the kids because they had thrown away papers that had a mistake. She reminded them that authors call mistakes revision, but then she said the words that sent daggers through my heart, “Kindergartners, you probably killed a tree with your thoughtlessness.” That look of disappointment in her eyes… She asked the offenders to come claim their papers and put them back in their writing folders. I slipped over guiltily with my head down to claim Jadan’s paper because when he said he’d made a mistake, I just carelessly threw the paper in the trash and gave him a new sheet! I honestly never thought about the trees.

I so admire these young kindergarten teachers who take this world we live in so seriously. They understand that we have a responsibility to those that come after us to protect what has been entrusted to us. They feel the responsibility to pass on their passion about this Earth to the next generation. I am inspired by them... so I promise – to think about wasting paper – and to listen and learn when they talk about recycling! And that’s just the first step…