Tag Archive | Earth Week

Sometimes We Get That Slow Start…

April 29-30

Sometimes we just get a slow start… Monday and Tuesday really was that for us. However, we ARE all done our Earth Week learning with the ending being focused on becoming a member of the “Green Team” just like Freddy in Save the Earth by Abby Klein.

Green Team

 

Getting in some workbook time

While waiting on Gavin to wake up the other 3 did their nature journal pages out in the sunshine.

Getting some sun

We were unable to take our much wished for walk on Monday due to a deep sleeper (Gavin didn’t get up until past 10 am and although not sick like he was expected to be, he was exceptionally well rested). and two coughers. BUT we did have two bikes repaired and ready to go for Trinity and Emanuel! Two out of four is not bad, though the twins were less than impressed.

First real bike

Emanuel on the go

Fixing with Baba

The twins found OTHER things to do in the yard… skipping rope, soccer (where IS our large ball??), tree climbing, baby in her coup pushing… sunshine sunshine sunshine!

The beloved Coup

Kick Zander Kick

Up in the tree with Gavin

Chalk!

Tuesday had the weather AND the kids cooperating and we were able to eat breakfast and get our way out on a nice long walk. First the walking path, over the bridge and then … PARK!

Working on the nature journals

Echo wore the wrong shoes for the park with her fake crocs falling off and getting pebbles in them but she and Emanuel had a blast playing pirates with their own theme song and everything. We also picked up our garbage for our last requirement on that Green Team I mentioned earlier. 

Park!!!

Yo ho ho

Babies at the park

There is a 2 yr old behind that sun shade… seriously!

We had a new penguin themed book to enjoy – Turtle’s Penguin Day by Valerie Gorbachev. The kids then drew themselves in penguin costumes! Even Echo had her brothers help her. Now that Trinity is 5 we are working on having her more and more involved in schooling. She is all for the workbooks now and hopefully will be more and more willing to sit with us as we do our books and extended projects. I HAVE found her a special Mother’s Day (sort of) themed lapbook that she will do one on one with Mommy.

I love it when all 5 kids do a project all together

I was able to find a polar themed movie from the library that we picked up on the weekend. Really Wild Animals: Polar Prowl by National Geographic was a hit with our family. We watched it on Monday while Gavin was sleeping and then an encore on Tuesday so Gavin could see it and put in his input on our pamphlet style sheet. It is fun to look at the differences between the Arctic and Antartica wildlife.

Followed by some rather interesting Electric Company

We also lucked out with enough adults that Emanuel and Trinity got a Mommy and Daddy bike ride…

By the second ride a pro!

Lovely evening for it

While Echo ran out the door with Baba well in hand. 

Walking with Baba

With my little helper when it comes to laundry…

FOLD

We have continued our penguin and earth awareness trend… and with a good night’s sleep on Monday night (Sunday was a sleepless for yours truly) we will ramp up the week and run into Mother’s Day, spring and walk walk walk outside. 

Me and my twins

Reuse, Recycle, RESPONSIBLE

April 24-25

Just like I promised, more Dirty Jobs today… Mattress Recycler (Season 4, Episode 7) where they… recycle mattresses (and remove old abandoned boats) can be watched (with Prime) for free on Amazon HERE. Our second episode was Chinatown Garbage Collector (Season 1, Episode 4) again Amazon (Prime for free) HERE.

Nana and Baba took just Trinity and Emanuel out for the morning, once they finished their letter and word practice of course!! It is so quiet with just 3 of the kids here! Especially when the twins are busy watching their Dirty Jobs.

We have continued our discussion with a list of things you can recycle…

  1. bottles and cans
  2. paper and cardboard
  3. glass
  4. metal
  5. toilets
  6. paint
  7. old toys/teddies… repurpose OR gift
  8. wood
  9. mattresses
  10. plastic
  11. food (compost)

We have always been aware of the good you can do by passing things along and have not only been a passer but a passee. (Is that even a term??) There is no reason that a handmedown should be refused if it is useful! When we use what we or someone else already has we are making a smaller footprint and extending the life of items that would otherwise fill up our landfills.

Our Earth Week related book of the day (and the last one I have that is not a chapter book) is Earth Day from the Let’s See company. This book is by Marc Tyler Nobleman. Today, in honour of conservation we did NOT print off anything specifically for this book or do a special page. Instead, we discussed what we learned and added to our list of things you can recycle on the back of our large brown paper page.. this paper is full up of information, both sides and once we are done will be used for a craft and then recycled. The kids are so proud of how we use BOTH sides of everything (scratch paper or scrap paper we call it here… so I can write out the sentences they tell me for them to in turn copy). We certainly cannot be paper free here but we are doing our best to make each scrap count! I am still determined to make paper with the kids this summer. We just need to get together our supplies and a sunny weekend for Ken to join in!

Earth Day

Our chapter book had a list of things the kids in the story needed to do to be a part of the Green Club… 10 things to conserve and clean the earth… Out of the 10 we have one left on the list to accomplish! Pick up 10 pieces of garbage. How many do you do on the list?

  1. Use recycled items to make crafts
  2. Turn off the lights, computers, etc
  3. Turn off the water when you brush your teeth
  4. Use reusable bottles for water (we use cups in the bathroom)
  5. Pick up 10 pieces of trash (our mission!)
  6. Bike or walk to school. We count this as done as we walk to parks, walk around the house and run outside for fun!
  7. Use cloth bags at the grocery store (we also added in that when we get plastic or paper we use them for other things… I have a ball of plarn waiting for time to learn how to make something with it!)
  8. Use BOTH sides of the paper… of course!!
  9. Use cloth towels instead of paper in the kitchen
  10. Take showers over baths (or if you are going to take a LOOONG time in the tub take that bath we agreed that a bath soak would use LESS water but showers ARE faster)
We did one of our two recycled 2 L bottle crafts… one will have to wait until the weekend and ken having more time. Our first craft is towards the end of the video list… a rain gauge. Now there are all sorts of problems with it, I am curious if we will keep up our initial water level… will it give a good reading? But that’s what an experiment is all about right???

With rain gauge

The twins and I took a moment to return to our penguin roots and look at an extra book. Without Emanuel I did not want to cover the next chapter in Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Our book was I am a Penguin by Karen Durrie. The twins took turns reading the book to me… we came upon a surprising fact that we had not seen before: “I keep my feathers dry with oil from my tail.” Definitely new to us!

I am a Penguin

Reading Together

We also made our very own penguin finger puppets. You can follow our instructions HERE. Though Ken winged it with his pieces and made his own pattern. Of course we had to wait to show them off properly until the next day.

Our pieces

Assembly

Penguins!

We had another penguin book as well… My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel. We got together and drew an amazing penguin habitat!

Habitat

We were creative all over the place… the boys continued work on their boat… the girls made block towers…

Towers in pastels

I finished my infinity scarf and made it well… infinite! You can find the pattern I used HERE. Thanks to my Facebook friend Keith for the suggestion AND all the support while I worked it out!

Sorry about the picture.. I was so excited to finish it that I took it in my pj’s

We are certainly getting our earth facts down!!! I think next year when we do Earth Day/Week we will focus some time on what the earth is actually made of and its place in the universe as well!

Of course ECHO believes SHE is the center of the universe… and who are we to say she isn’t? hehe

Recycle on Earth Day

April 22-23

Well, with the ongoing battle of spring VS snow planting our Earth Day tree ON Earth Day simply couldn’t happen. So instead we made do with what we could do inside… starting with TWO books… the first Earth Day by Mir Tamim Ansary. The second a chapter out of our chapter book: Ready Freddy! #25… Save the Earth by Abby Klein.

Earth Day

We started our chatting about it with what we already knew about what we should do on Earth Day… plant a tree, turn things off… and then went on to write out what we learned from our books. The beginnings of Earth Day, what we could do… and then… we did! We looked at our lunch and saw what we could recycle if we took a few seconds and rinsed it out (yogurt cups)… we turned off more lights (like I like to anyway) and opened the blinds in the basement, we had short showers at night (again if only they would be so efficient usually).

Our Earth Week friendly world

The twins spent their afternoon crafting out of the craft bucket using at least ONE item that is recycled. Gavin used yarn bits for his person and a Kleenex box for its home with cardboard for the bed. Zander used a  toilet paper roll judiciously decorated and sparkly to make a lantern for his sister that he then tried to convince his Nana to give him a candle to REALLY light it up.

Clothespin girl

Lantern WITHOUT candle

We talked about how important it was to walk away from the tv and computers… how playing outside uses up their excess energy and doesn’t use excessive household energy. So of course I pitched them outside TWICE to run around and enjoy the almost gone snow… that is now coming BACK. SERIOUSLY!!!

22nd of APRIL

We have collected some worksheets as well… of course after we finish our week long unit (or before), we will flip the sheets over and scratch paper, colour, give to Echo to create on… where ever the fancy takes us. Let’s see… Trinity enjoyed Recycling at the Beach HERE. We had to put a reminder poster over our recycling containers from an Activity Village poster HERE. I made the K worksheet a little more difficult by giving it to the twins and telling them to read it themselves and go from there HERE.

Recycle!

Ending our day with games with daddy!

GAMES

The next day we had our SECOND crafting day… more creativity but adding in the younger kiddos also meant more whining and confusion. It took Trinity most of our crafting time to come up with her idea… a little house for her small My Little Ponies (Kleenex box). Emanuel was first out the gate with his marble slide (Kleenex box, candy box, toilet paper rolls and Easter eggs), Gavin made a McDonalds for yesterday’s yarn people (toilet paper rolls, tops of a happy meal box, cardboard and paper from their spelling practices), Zander made himself a portable table with caster type things (box and Easter eggs). All very creative and rather amazing!!

Trinity’s house

Marble toy

Gavin’s restaurant

Zander’s table

We had a second craft that was a little more complicated for the twins and I to accomplish over naptime. Origami no less! Using newspaper to make garbage bins! You can follow Activity Village’s instructions HERE.

Garbage bins

We also discussed what is recyclable. The kids are are rather aware of what is and isn’t as here in our area the Recycling is only picked up every 2nd week. Unlike up in Alberta where we had it every week when we lived on our own. You can find an easy list pirintable HERE. Though I am sure areas differ.

We found some Dirty Jobs (a family favourite) episodes showing various ways to recycle. There is the episode Maple Syrup Maker (Season 4, Episode 17) that includes a trip to a paint recycling location. You can watch it on Amazon HERE. (free if  you have Prime) Our second episode was Toilet Crusher (Season 4, Episode 9… I know, out of order) where toilets are removed and recycled. Again you can watch it for free on Amazon HERE (with Prime). I am sure we will watch another one the next day…

We are keeping it minor in the worksheets but I found an adorable tree related one with some facts about how wonderful they are for the world HERE. We were tipped off about an amazing math colouring printables site by our friend and now teacher Steven. Check out Coloring Squared HERE for a series of them with two difficulties. We did  the Lion and the Monkey. It was a little simple for the twins but a good practice of addition and I saw improvement in speed of correctly answering the calculations.

We also snuck in a Wild Kratts – Sloth and the Sloth Moth.

Sloth and Sloth Moth

Add in a tea party and I think we did a good two days of learning and fun!

Tea Party!!!

This entry was posted on 25/04/2013, in Uncategorized. 4 Comments