Okay, so I really like Earth Day, all right?! I didn’t intend for my Earth Day post to come out in June, but, you know, sometimes things happen. Like sometimes you ask the teachers to have the kids finish coloring their pieces and sometimes the teachers misunderstand and sometimes they send them home with the kids and sometimes you have nothing to put on display until sometimes one kid brings her piece back to school and you can share your post.
And then you forget about it cause you’re on crazy endofyear mode until the Tuesday after school lets out, but then you already posted about your toilet, so you schedule it for tomorrow.
Anyway, that’s why my second half of my Earth Day post isn’t happening until the second week of June. I figure it’s not actually that much worse than my MLK Day post in March, right?
So anyways…
With my third grade pull-out group, we focused on the 3Rs. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. First, we watched a BrainPop Jr. about the 3Rs and we charted out the important ideas:We used what we’d learned to complete The Lesson Plan Diva’s Earth Day Craftivity Freebie! (That’s a lot of capital letters.) You can grab it free at TPT. I also did this with my kids last year. Short & sweet, but they enjoyed it. You can read about the whole persuasive writing conservation unit shenanigans here.Not the best picture, but you get the idea.
Then, we read Michael Recycle!It’s pretty cute, it rhymes, and it’s an easy read. Yay, right?After that, we had fun.We brainstormed a list of words that were related to “Helping the Earth.” It was a pretty hideous chart, so I’m not picturing it here. My next charts are also terrible, so you can imagine how bad the one I’m actually censoring was.I modeled (badly) making up a name for a superhero using one of the words off of our list and a blast of alliteration! I’m Captain Conservation.Then I wrote several sentences using as many C-words as I could (because Captain Conservation starts with Cs) describing how Captain Conservation helps the Earth. I also modeled (as you can tell by the hideous-ness), some revising.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Revising!
Then, I embarrassingly sketched out what my finished product would look like.
The kids, of course, went to town and had a blast. These is one of their pieces:
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Isn't Brain Pop the best?!?! Your honesty about your charts is awesome. I am the same way! They never turn out beautiful and neat and artsy just strictly functional. I am glad I found your blog.
She
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I'm glad you found my blog, too! Thanks for your comments about charts. Makes me feel more normal! And yes, I so very much heart brainpop.
Awww…even my big kids loved Michael Recycle on Earth Day. 🙂 Cute activity! 🙂
~Brandee
Creating Lifelong Learners