I'd like to think that in JK, we celebrate Earth Day, everyday!
A few opportunities presented themselves, and we explored how we can be stewards of the earth. We started off the week learning a new song by local singer/songwriter: Chris McKhool from his album titled: Earth, Seas and Air .
We followed up with a simple craft that involved scissor cutting and shape recognition. You may remember our little song....
"Open and shut
Open and shut
That's the way we cut, cut, cut
Fingers on the bottom
Thumb on top
Do not let the paper drop
Open and shut
Open and shut
That's the way we cut, cut, cut!"
After viewing pictures of earth from space (from varying perspectives: northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere), the children observed the colours seen: blue, green, brown and white. Using their critical thinking, they deduced that the blue was the oceans (*note how there is more water than land on earth), that the green was grass, and the brown was soil :) Many agreed that the white must be the clouds.
The children "painted" their earth using a tool other than brushes. Straws were used instead. We covered some basics first; such as, we blow OUT of the straw. (Not IN) And some preferred to scratch the paint across the paper instead, using the straw. It's all about discovery!
We also had a lot of fun being at the Recycling Station last week! Thank you for sending in items for our Show and Share. Many eager volunteers grabbed a marker and paper to create labels for our bins.
The children took great pride in presenting their recycling, telling us what the product was and then what the packaging was made from. It really made them take pause. You should have seen the kerfuffle that the egg carton created. "Paper!?" "What!?" Voices were falcetto!
A drink bottle hits the plastic bin.
A soy sauce bottle makes its way into the "glass" recycling.
An infant formula lid from a "glass" bottle made its way into the
metal bin. That took some by surprise too -
"The lid from a glass bottle? But
it's glass?!"
I missed the photo opportunity of two of our friends dropping
their banana peels into the vermiculture bin.
"Hello Compost!"
And, I love surprises. One of our friends brought in an old cell phone. It didn't
fit into our tidy little labeled bins: glass, plastic, paper, metal, compost.
E-Waste.
This cell phone came with a recycling package from Rogers / fido. According to the package, in exchange for sending in your old cell phone, a donation will be made to a Canadian Food Bank. I haven't done my research about where the e-waste goes and how it is broken down, but the cause itself sounds good to me, and worth checking out this link to Phones for Food.
Perhaps as time passes, the children will continue to think about the materials that products are made from, and how recycling impacts our environment. It starts small ...
Thanks again for visiting the atelier.
