Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Early Earth Day and Plants


During April, we don't wait until Earth Day rolls around to learn about taking care of our Earth.  We learn all about natural resources, recycling, pollution, etc. all month long.  This year, we scheduled our plant unit to follow our natural resources unit, so... what better way to link the two than reading The Lorax!

So here is what we have been doing.  We started with natural resources and have been learning all about caring for our environment, protecting our resources, recycling, reusing, and reducing, and pollution.  We did lots of sorts: natural resources from man-made; trash from recyclables; recyclable materials (glass, plastic, paper, etc).  Then we did our own recycling project.  We saved our old milk cartons at lunch and made these cute little bird feeders!
 

We also made these cute flip books (a freebie I found on TPT)!



After we had a good grasp on what all of this means, we read The Lorax.  We made this cute tree to tell all about the story and we wrote stories about how we could speak for the tress and take care of our Earth.  The kids LOVED making their own Lorax mustaches.  I let them each make their own so that they could take them home!

And of course, we watched the movie!

Then, to lead into plants, we talked about how The Lorax teaches us that we can help our Earth by planting more seeds.  We put together this cute little book that talks about the different parts of a Truffula plant and ends with me giving each of them their own seed to plant (found on TPT).  We planted our seeds into "Lorax pots" and then discussed how to care for them.

We have been learning all about what plants need and the parts of a plant. This diagram is a yearly favorite!  My kids love doing it.


We have had so much fun!!

3 comments: