Happy Earth Day!
Happy Earth Day!
We had a wonderful week celebrating Earth Day. It has been a week full of discoveries and realizations. Our hearts and hands have been full of love not only for our family and friends, but most especially for our planet Earth. When we announced that Friday is our last earth day celebration, Re suggested, “We should do every day is Earth Day in Flowers!”. Way to go, Flowers! We all agreed to join in our daily Earth Day celebration because we believe that we can do it!
Let’s look at how we celebrated Earth Day this week, which will serve as our guide as we take the challenge of doing them every day. We had a short review of what we had each day and here it is:
Da: No meat Monday.
Hi: Lights Off Day (Tuesday).
Da: No Water (Save water on Wednesday).
Be: Don’t waste (Eat everything. Don’t throw food on Thursday).
Ka: Don’t waste food on Thursday.
Hi: Zero talking on Friday (Zero plastic)
CIRCLE TIME
At Ohana, we have been singing “No more plastic, doo doo doo!” and invite everyone not to use plastic on Fridays. But it was a question for us how we can help save the earth by not using plastic. We are lucky to borrow excellent books about saving the earth from Azabu Library. We read some pages from the book, The Plastic Problem by Aubre Andrus.
First, we learned where we could find plastic. It was a surprise for us to hear that we see plastic in our fridges (like egg trays and ice trays) except for Be who said, “but my egg tray in our fridge is made of glass”. When Da heard that, he replied, “Oh my egg tray is made of “PLAS”. Sh added, “I have a box with a lot of water, and you put it in the fridge”. Another surprise was to learn that we have plastic in our clothes, too!
Ka: You can make clothes with plastic from the plastic recycling.
Da: My dad have plastic clothes and he takes the plastic where he works.
Ka: Glass easily breaks.
We looked at Re’s dress’ tag which tells us the kinds of materials that were used in her dress. We read words such as polyester and nylon which are types of plastic. Unfortunately, we can see these materials in a lot of our clothes.
WHAT HAPPENS to PLASTIC in the BIN?
This week, we changed the labels of our bins with pictures of food that we bring to school. With a quick glance, we can see which bin our garbage must go. We are proud and happy that we can separate our garbage well. It didn’t cross our mind what happens to the plastic that we throw in the bin. Or the food scraps, tissues, and paper towels. Co had an idea. She said, “We put the banana peel in the dirt, it goes to the dirt. The small ants will eat the banana peel”. Au added, “I know how the banana peel disappears. The garbage truck people take it away”. Well, it was a relief to know that banana peel is biodegradable or naturally breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces until it disappears into the soil.
What a big surprise to hear these numbers: 5 years for milk carton, 150-1,000 years for plastic water bottle. These numbers tell us the length of time that this garbage sticks around in a landfill. Then there is a new word for us, Garbage Patch. We saw a picture of it yesterday and could not imagine how an ocean could be filled with so much plastic. As we talked about our planet Earth this week, we feel that we need to do something to show that we care about our planet. Here are some ways we think we can do:
Ka: Use things like plastic, even you don’t need to throw it away.
D: How about we put like pretend plastic here on wall.
Re: If we drink it, how we gonna be (drinking in a can)?
We, the people on earth make the garbage. Hi said, “But ocean don’t need garbage”.
Be: I’m gonna sell my toy (that I don’t want to play with it anymore) and donate the money to some place. When kids are too sick and they make a wish before they die, I can give money so they do what they want to do.
Hi: My mommy say, if you share the toy, it will come back to you.
Sh: My sister, she’s waiting food. She go to the trash and she throw the food away.
Ke: My mommy throw away my t-shirts. It’s small. Next time, give it to baby. It’s small.
I: We can give the toy to someone else.
Amazing ideas, Flowers! Let’s help save the Earth by celebrating Earth Day every day😊
TODAY…
To celebrate Earth Day (which was today!), we spent our day in Flowers without turning on the lights. We made sure that the toilet lights were off as well when no one was using them. Our teachers were proud of our eagerness to help the Earth. So, our Earth salt dough medals were awarded to us at the end of our discussion. Hi said, “Oh, wow we are like Otani Shouhei when they win baseball game!” Yes, Flowers are Earth-Saver Champions! Keep it up!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Love,
Flowers XOXO