EARTH DAY, what can we do on EARTH DAY?
22nd April 2019
Today was a special Monday in Flowers Class because we celebrated EARTH DAY. EARTH DAY is a special day around the world when people focus more on the earth and what we can all do to take care of it. We will share some more things about our EARTH DAY in Flowers Class to-wards the end of our journal from today.
ART ACTIVITIES AND FREE PLAY
Since our classroom was dark, as we were not using electricity, so that we could save energy (which is one of things that you can do to take care of the earth), when we did our art activities and free play, it was dark in our classroom. We adjusted our eyes to the dark and manages to do drawings together at one of the tables. We used a combination of coloured pencils and coloured thin markers. Shelley sat with us and some of us said that we were making monsters so she too drew a monster. Hers was a rainbow monster. Natan also drew a rainbow monster and you can see how different theirs were. All of us have our own imaginations and creative ability so even though we can choose the same theme for our art work, what we end up creating is unique and different.
We spent time making Koi Nobori because during the Golden Week holidays, it will be “Kodomo no hi” which is specifically for boys. Flying carp/koi are symbols of this festival and we have some which we hang on our balcony and let flutter in the wind. We looked at a book that Hisami read to us last week and we made our own unique Koi Nobori. Our teachers marvel at our skills and individuality and how many of us are able to make our own artworks using detail and thought. Unfortunately because our Koi Nobori are 3D, we will not be able to put them inside our workbooks/portfolios. Perhaps we can take a photo and put the photo in our books. It was so dark in the bathroom and kitchen area, Hisami and Kai very kindly held up a candle so that we could have some light.
GYMNASTICS
Miyashita sensei went along with our EARTH DAY, no electricity policy and all of the our gymnastics classes were in the dark. We did all of our regular exercises and worked hard to master the few new ones that Sato Sensei introduced to us, last week. Shelley also saw Buds having a mystery reader in the dark! What a fun day for all classes!
EARTH DAY
EARTH DAY brought with it some interesting changes to our regular school day, which were embraced by all of us. Some of our friends asked the question: “Why is it dark in our classroom?” and there were enough of us who remembered and replied: “Today is EARTH DAY”. So what does it mean if it is EARTH DAY? “EARTH DAY, EARTH DAY, what can we do on EARTH DAY, what can we do on EARTH DAY? We can save our earth”. This is the first line of our EARTH DAY song.
We know that there are many things that we can do to help take care of our earth and one that we try to do every day is, bring only reusable plastic to school. Usually Friday is our “ZERO PLASTIC DAY” but we included it in our programme for today. Understanding that plastic is not good for our earth has motivated us not to bring plastic to school, on all other days of the week, so today seemed pretty regular for us. Our teachers have made us aware of how damaging plastic is for our oceans and the earth, with ocean creatures dying from eating plastic that is washed into the oceans. We believe that we can help save the earth by doing the following:
Pick up garbage; switch lights off when we leave a room; open windows instead of air conditioning; use only reusable plastic and no disposable plastic; switch taps off after we wash hands; save energy without lights; we can walk and ride bicycles instead of drive cars.
We have a ritual of picking up garbage when we go to the park so this was another focus for our EARTH DAY activities. With our lights off the whole day, it meant that we did all of our art projects, reading books, playing games etc. in the dark. The darkness did more than remove the light from our day, it seemed to make us calmer. There was a stillness in our classroom, as the volume in our voices was lower and our energy level was quieter. Our teachers thought a lot about the lighting in our room; that perhaps it is something that they can change in the future to create a better balance for our learning and focus; and for our sight.
When we were having library time, we gravitated to the balcony and sat on the step reading, as this gave us more light, to see our books. Inside the classroom, it was quite dark, as the day was a little cloudy, with sunshine hiding behind the clouds. We listened to our EARTH DAY song which John composed a few years ago and are aware of the many things that we can do, to preserve the earth for us and our future.
We love how our school brings these important universal themes into our learning so we can learn how “we too can make a difference!”
HAPPY EARTH DAY everyone.
DISCUSSION
We chatted about why we are having this special EARTH DAY at our school. Here are some of our thoughts:
Kai: Why do we have the lights off today?
Taisei: Because it’s Earth Day
Temma: If we don’t put the lights on, we will save lights
Kai: Another word for that is saving energy. Where does energy come from?
Temma: Gas
Natan: Water can be energy. The hot or cold things
Emilie: On Earth Day, we turn lights off so electricity doesn’t run out
Ai: You can pick up plastic
Emilie: We can pick up garbage
Kai: Why?
Sarah: Because maybe somebody do it
Taisei: Plastic will go to the ocean. The fish eat plastic and die
Alona: Maybe somebody forgot to pick up their own plastic
Ethan: Somebody threw trash
Taisei: Sometimes we just drop it and we don’t know
Kai: What can you do with garbage on the street?
Ava: Pick it up
Sarah: If you have garbage, you can’t just throw it
Temma: We can put it in home or school and throw in the bin
Anika: I can see momma’s phone, the fish was trying to eat plastic.
So you can see how our conversations go on as we try to make sense of the world and what we are learning about.
Thanks for a fabulous EARTH DAY and we are looking forward to tomorrow when it will be WORLD BOOK DAY.
XOXOXOXOXOX All the Flowers Class children