We've Got the Whole World: Earth Day Project

Yesterday I shared some of my Stars' "flower power" recycled art with you.  Today I'd like to show you a coloring/painting/writing project:

Using a coloring page found here, I asked our copier secretary to enlarge the Earth onto a 12 X 18 piece of white construction paper.  After students colored the land and water with crayons,

they used black watercolor to darken the rest of the page:

Once the watercolor had dried, our assistant painted the Star's hands red, placing them on either side of our big blue marble.

 The Stars then copied "I've got the whole world in my hands."

As each student finishes, our Earth Day project joins our Flower Power recycled art in the hallway. 

What a fun, gallery-style display for April!

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Would you like to share your own Earth Day/Recycling project?  Link us up in the comments!

Flower Power: A Recycling Project

As we learn about reducing, reusing and recycling, I've invited the Super Stars and their families to create spring flowers using materials found at home... materials that might otherwise be tossed out with the trash.  Take a peek at some of the creations brought to school so far:

Cardboard, plastic, scrap fabric...

Bottle caps and glass stones were added to a tough tote lid... 

Magazine pages, plastic lids and cardboard tubing filled a plastic bottle vase...

Plastic cups and a bottle were painted and then framed in a cardboard lid...

The flowers are sharing our hallway bulletin board with our Earth Day painting project.

Family collaboration makes this a fun activity for the weekend, but it would also be easy to add materials to a creative construction zone or other crafty center in the classroom as well.  Families can donate the materials that their students enjoy using:

~ cardboard

~ plastic lids

~ bottlecaps (decide in advance if you'd like to accept all bottle caps or only those from non-alcoholic items)

~ bottles

~ yarn

~ paint

~ newspaper or extra book order forms/ scratch paper

~ scrap fabric

~ cardboard tubes

~ cereal boxes or frozen food item boxes/ trays

~ plasticware

What kinds of artwork do your students enjoy creating using recyclable materials?

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Visit me again tomorrow when I'll show you our Earth Day painting project!

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Today being April 1, my Super Stars had fun fooling me!


Student 1: "Yeah, so Mrs. Sommerville? I can totally speak Dolphin now."

Student 2: "Mrs. Sommerville- today is my 18th birthday. I'm supposed to tell you I'm ready to move out and get a job."

Student 3: "School's been called off Mrs. Sommerville! You can leave right now and go shopping!"

Student 4: "Uh, Mrs. Sommerville, don't freak out. The world ran out of coffee."

Did your students try to ~fool~ you today? If so, share with us over on Twitter:

#kindergartenaprilfool

Earth Day, April 22

Earth Day 2010 is just around the corner (April 22), so here are some links for you:

~ Earth Day coloring pages at Make and Takes...

* Enchanted Learning recycles egg cartons to make animals...

~ DLTK's Crafts for Kids uses a coffee filter, markers and water to make Planet Earth...

* Green Daily shares Earth Day crafts for kids, including "crazy hair" grass cups and edible rice cereal Earth treats...


~ Play an online Clean-up-Your-World game (sorting glass, paper, plastic, and cans) at FunSchool Kaboose...

* ...and remember to join the Lorax and speak for the trees!

Please share your favorite Earth Day links in the comment section!

Teacher!

Here's something I love to hear as a kindergarten teacher:

"TEACHER! Something *cool* happened!!!!!"

What could be more cool than watching seeds sprout into plants? My Stars went on a seed hunt, finding seeds everywhere, asking parents to bag 'em and tag 'em so we could start them in soil as a science center:





With the help of a Super Star Mom, my students played in soil, planted seeds, watered them, and made sure they put them in a sunny corner of the room we share with the kindergarten class next door:



Five days later something *cool* did indeed happen:



Two days later? Check out the nasturtiums, one container of tomato sprouts, and our sunflower plant (not surprisingly, the tallest of them all!):



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The Stars were also proud to help our planet by reusing their milk cartons from lunch each day- Earth Day CAN be every day!