Earth Day Collages

Alright, so here is Earth Day Part 2!

We started these collages on Friday and finished them up today. It is kind of a lengthy project, but the kids love it and they look sooooooo cool!

So here is the deal. Each kids get a 11 x 17 piece of paper. They have to create a collage on the paper with photos or illustrations from magazines displaying things found in nature and/or natural resources. (I will say I am thankful that we already completed our unit on goods and resources as it was an easy tie-in!).

After completing the collage aspect, the students had to think of a word or phrase that they thought was important for Earth Day and that went well with their collage. They created the word or phrase by cutting out invidual letters from the magazines and putting them together to form words.

(I will say if you want to do this activity make sure you have a lot of nature magazines on hand and/or ask your students parents to donate some. I know my grandma always gets free calendars in the mail- these work amazingly for the big photos!)

Here are some of our finished products:

"the planet"

"be green"

"help the earth"

"i love the earth"

They look pretty sweet, right?!

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day - Part 1

Today we decorated our grocery bags for the "Earth Day Groceries Project". This is such a fun and simple project and the kids get sooooo excited about it! I roped some of the other teachers at my school in too and we decorated around 260 bags in all with positive Earth Day messages. The students bags will be given to customers at our local Jewel-Osco on Sunday to celebrate Earth Day! 

Some in Spanish!

Aren't these just too clever!?

Of course the Lorax had to make his way into the mix!

I leave you with this adorable rock video in Spanish for Earth Day! One of my colleagues sent it to me today and it was just too much fun not to share! Rock out with your kids on Monday- seriously!

Earth Day Bag Project, Last Day for Giveaway!

So I went shopping yesterday. It's possible certain I may have gone a little overboard in the new shoe department. However, as I know you all can appreciate (as I have seen some of your fantastically fashionable posts as well), I got a good deal on all of them- and the zinger....I can wear all of these sandals to school, because they are not technically "flip flops". Is anyone else as obsessed with wedges as I am? Being a soaring minute 5 feet tall myself, finding shoes that give me some height and that are comfy enough to wear to school all day is A-mazing!

Alright, thanks for letting me share my tangental (not sure that's a word) shoe excitement. On to the educational business...

Has anyone else ever participated in the "Earth Day Groceries Project"?  If not, here is the "quick" lowdown. At the beginning of April, when you are on your weekly grocery store visit, take a moment to ask the store manager if they could donate paper bags for this project. You snag enough for just your class or if you really want to do it up- get your whole school involved. I have done both in the past. Once you have all of your paper bags (I would get one for each student participating) then you bring them back to school and all of the students decorate one bag with an earth friendly message or picture. Then, you simply return the bags to the store, and on Earth Day they will use them to bag up all of the customers items. The kids absolutely love going to the store that day with their parents to see all of the bags! It's such a simple way to send a positive message and get the kids involved in a short and sweet service learning activity. Click on the icon above to learn more!

Finally just a reminder that this is the last day to enter our "Dazzling Double Giveaway"! It ends tonight  (March 31/April 1) at midnight! I have had so much fun reading all of your $100 classroom shopping spree responses thus far, and I want to thank you guys for taking a moment out of your day to share your thoughts and participate in our giveaway! Casey and I super excited about it, so if you haven't entered yet (and you still want to), don't delay, do it today! (Because like I said...it ends tonight!) 

Click on the button to take you to our giveaway post!