Earth Day Activities

Earth Week Writing and Art projects…..

This week we were a little late in getting our Earth Day stuff done. I really like to spend a full week on Earth Day, I think it is that important for kids to know that we can all make a difference in how we Reduce our trash use, reuse things and recycle what we can. And most of them don’t know how much trash we dump in our landfills, or even what a landfill is!

The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling by Alison Inches  It’s a great week to learn how we all can help in the goal of reducing our trash, recycling, and not wasting resources.

Going Green Bracelets…..all 30 kids made these….check out Oriental Trading for the  cute foam beads.
We wrote about how we can help during Earth Week…

Earth Day prompt; I can help the earth by……

Composting is very good for the earth! The kids learned a lot from all their readings….

Oh no! Pollution is not good!  Yuck! 
Our bulletin board…. with our 2 weekly readers…..
We talked about the 3 Rs; Reducing, reusing and recycling…
We chose our Earth Day writing papers…..

 Then painted the earth on coffee filters…..and glued on hands…..

And colored rainbows…..gotta love a rainbow! 
Picking up trash for Earth Week is a great idea! 
Walking instead of taking a car…great idea!  
Earth Week book center…..we read many Weekly Readers too….
And I bought “Peat Pots” for us to plant vegetables seeds of our choice…..
We wrote down things we would try to do to be better at ecology…..
And recycling and not adding to the pollution we see…in water, parks and beaches….
We’ve learned a lot about our world these past few weeks…..

Planting Vegetable Gardens

We just got done planting our Vegetable Gardens in “Peat Pots”…
The boys here are showing off their seed choices….in these Peat Pots.

 Springtime in Utah means we actually get a few tulips, daffodils and crocus coming up as soon as the snow melts. So it makes me think about my flower and vegetable gardens. And with the April showers we get, it is the perfect time to plant some seeds.

Flowers made from cupcake liners….the roots are made from string….
Everybody picked out their 2 favorite veggies to plant in their Peat Pots….

We read about Jack and Beanstalk and wrote about him last year. See it HERE.  And this year we read about a special Garden in our Literature Book. So we brainstormed what would happen if we planted some “magic” seeds?

So….. we wrote about our own magical garden where some of our most favorite foods could grow from magical seeds. We had everything from donuts and pancake plants to ice cream and pizza plants. Yummy!

The girls loved planting veggies too.

They really loved Mrs. Adams art using “string” for the roots….so cute!  Everybody labeled the parts of the plant too….

Look at that ride in Adam’s Donut Garden! How fun! A donut bouncy house! 

 We made advertising POSTERS for our AMUSEMENT PARK GARDENS. Then we wrote a persuasive advertisement to go along with our poster enticing people to come to our park.

Peter’s Pizza Park is FREE on Weekends!  Who could pass THAT up? 
Here’s our creative writing….Lots of fun Gardens and Parks…..just like Disneyland!  

Here’s a sampling…but they were all very fun to read about…..

And all these parks are such deals! Only a buck! I wish it was real life and not a fantasy park! 

Leave it to Gavin to think up a Money Garden….where  his money grows on plants!  Yay! 

Nova’s and Zach’s Pizza Gardens had a Pizza ferris wheel and pizza plants all over….yum!  I’d take a  BIG BITE! 

Come One, Come All! Love it! 

 I think I’d be persuaded to go and check some of these wild parks out….wouldn’t you?

Narrated story of Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed…with sound effects…..

We wrote down which seeds we planted on sticks so we don’t forget…..Some cute plant tag printables are HERE at Chart Jungle.


Books in my Plant unit that  I Love:
1. Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
2. The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
3. Flower Garden by Eve Bunting
4. From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons
5. From Seed to Sunflower by Gerald Legg

I leave these books out on my science center and kids really do get through the whole lot of them….and some of them I read aloud…..

The book Flower Garden has such lovely pictures….one of my favorites….
I found these “Peat pots” for $2.00 for a set of 22…..perfect for my classroom. Then I picked out vegetable seeds I wanted to plant indoors to do some “starts” for my own veggie garden.  The kids got to pick 2 kinds of seeds for their “starter” plants.  
Also Planting a Rainbow and The Tiny Seed…..great books for kids.

I gave them the choice of tomato, cucumber, sugar snap peas, radishes, zuchini or cilantro herb.  Most of them picked tomato or sugar snap peas, but we had quite a variety.  I placed them in this grow tray and put a grow light on them.

Their rotation with Mrs. Adams where they did a Plant Journal

And other assorted activities….

The boys liked the Plant and Seeds art project they did in science rotations.

The girls with their labeled parts of a flower….

Plants and seeds are one of my favorites! 
I hope our seeds sprout up very soon….and I better get my own garden started too!   Happy Spring Gardening!!!

April Watercolor flowers and Kite Poems

April Showers bring Pretty Spring Flowers…..and KITES! 
We made DIAMONTE Poetry on Kites this week…..and Coffee Filter Flowers 

DIAMONTE POEMS are poems in a diamond pattern…they go like this…
                     1 word                                                                    
        2 word phrase describing above word        
3 words ending in “ing” describing first word  (participles)
         2 words (adjectives)                                          
                    1 word (synonym of 1st word)        

   See a link HERE for instructions and a sample form.           

We painted coffee filters and added sunflower seeds and stems….

Our  bulletin board reads “April Showers Bring Pretty Spring Flowers”

Pretty Springtime Kite poetry 

We added chains to each kite of our spelling words written two times each….

The flowers can be either painted with water colors or dipped in food coloring and dried…..
We did it both ways and the food coloring way is definitely easier and less messy! 
Just snip a little strip in between two folds so every 3rd fold cut out….

Paint the center area a different color and when dried add the sunflower seeds to the flower….

They were all different color combinations….really cute….

So were our poems from all things SPRING! 

Sports were represented……as well as……

Allergies of course…..and……

Insects of all sorts…..

And Springtime Animals too……can’t forget those……

And all kinds of weather and flowers…and even Hunting! 

Of course football….we have some die hard football lovers here…..

And Gardening too….

Easter poems  too….

And plants…I think we covered it all! 

This is an easy art project for spring….coffee filter flowers….

Dip them…..dry them….trim them….and glue them on a stem with a leaf…..

We backed our flowers with another filter just to keep them looking 3 D and perky…. 

It was fun and easy! Dip and Dry….then trim them and embellish them….

This little girl “rounded” her petals on her Spring Watercolored flowers  too.  

Gotta love the flower with a face, am I right?   Happy Spring Everybody! 

Colored Eggs and Sidewalk Chalk

 For our Easter Party this year we did something different. Since I have most of my class from last year I decided to do some colored eggs and baskets, and then go outside and do some sidewalk chalk. It was a perfect day too.

We made little Easter baskets with chicks inside….

We colored eggs…

Addie drew some Easter bunnies…

 I was surprised how much the kids loved their little baskets with the little fuzzy chickie inside.

Emma drew Easter eggs and chicks….
We made baskets out of our lunchtime milk cartons…..
We washed them out…filled them with Easter grass…..

Then we colored some hard boiled eggs Mrs. Moss brought to school……

Then we put handles on our little baskets and decorated them up…..

Everybody picked a bunny, made strips of grass too…..

We wrapped these strips of “grass” around our milk cartons…then added cute egg  and bunny cutouts to them…

Matt made a giant, pastel, ice cream cone….
Finished Easter baskets ready to hold our colored eggs….

Brynlin made so many cute things…the chalk was very bright and colorful! 

Here are all the guys proud of their baskets! 

Zach made a cute Easter Bunny….all the kids that came out after school saw our chalk  creations….
Here little chicky chicky….

Easter Cards went home to parents too….

We wrote parent letters for inside the cute cards too. They were very nice. I think they will be a fun surprise on Easter morning!  

Easter Letters to Parents

They were cute with the cards on top….

Trace made a really pretty Easter egg! 
Nova made some Easter eggs and Spring Flowers….

Happy Spring Break everybody! 
I hope the principal liked our sidewalk chalk art…cuz we forgot to ask if it was okay! Oops! 

Easter Cards and Baskets

We made little itty bitty baskets for our colored eggs from a lunchtime milk carton at school.
We colored eggs and put our names on them to fill our cute baskets…
AND….. we made cute Easter cards with Easter baskets filled with eggs and things inside….

We wrote letters to mom and dad to go inside our cards too…

We had just about every color of the rainbow…..well….except purple….

The cards turned out so pretty! 

Every card was unique 

Lots of love went into them…..

Lots of fake candy too….snicker….

Then we made tiny baskets out of pint milk cartons from lunchtime….

We cut off the tops, stapled on handles and filled them with  Easter grass….

Then we decorated the outside of  them and added a little fuzzy chick…..

Here’s a finished one….super cute…..perfect for our colored eggs…

It was fun for the kids to color the hard boiled eggs Mrs. Moss brought in….

Here we are with our finished baskets after school…..Happy Easter! 

Hope you all have a great Spring Break! 

It will be fun to do some Easter Egg hunts…..

Hope you all have fun! 

Happy Easter!