Celebrating Earth Week

Although we discuss the importance of global responsibility throughout the year, we really try to focus on it during Earth Week in the classroom.  I tried to incorporate these kind of activities into all subjects across the curriculum this week.

On Monday we did this word problem for our three part math lesson.  We've been studying perimeter and area for about a week, so I thought they'd be good to go.  But boy, they struggled with it.  They all wanted to do 1.2 x 10 = 12 for area.  Not so much.  I gave them hints to draw a diagram, and I even started off a diagram for them, but we still had to revisit the problem the next day to consolidate the learning and fix-up some of the misconceptions.  It was a real math work-out.  ;)

On Tuesday we got outside for a yard clean-up.  But I decided to add a twist.  I divided the class into 4 groups and we made it a relay race.  I kept track of the number of pieces of garbage collected on the whiteboard - because my class is so competitive this year - this was a HUGE success.  They set a goal to collect 100 pieces of garbage, but I ended up filling both sides of the whiteboard with tally marks, and we ended up collecting well over 300 pieces of garbage (I would just like to insert that we have a gigantic school yard, and we did the back, front, driveway, and parking lot).  Fresh air, exercise, and some care of the school grounds ... perfect!

Our science unit is Conserving Energy, so I decided to pair it with some writing this week, and I used some writing prompts and paper from The Science Penguin.  Click here to see her Earth Day Freebie.  I let the students choose from 8 different prompts, then they had to complete their good copies on the Earth Day stationery in the pack.  We added some art (coffee filter globes) and had a perfect display for Earth Week.

You can get directions for making the coffee filter globes here.

How did you celebrate Earth Week with your class?