After studying the fragile wetland ecosystems along the gulf coast, students decided to raise money to help save the wetlands by selling artwork made out of recycled materials. The whole second grade team came together to raise money for Restore the Earth Foundation during YACS Fest. I'm proud to report we raised a total of $260.00 and just as exciting--we made the news! During the fourth marking period learners studied how to take care of the environment by reducing, reusing, and recycling. The class watched the documentary, Plastic Paradise, to learn about the harm that plastic causes in our ocean's ecosystems. Learners were inspired after viewing and discussing numerous artists who make work with recycled plastic and decided to step up and make a change at school and at home. Rather than bring in toys for sharing, learners began digging in the trash to salvage plastic to make works of art. At lunch time, learners realized instead of throwing away plastic bottles in the garbage, they could recycle the plastic in the hallway recycling bins! Eureka! The class soon realized that if they could make a difference, so could the whole school! Learners completed a research project to find out just how many plastic bottles students were throwing away at YACS each day during lunch. The project included sending field researches to the YACS Dining Room to collect some data. Next students wrote persuasive essays to convince students, teachers, and administrators to begin recycling their plastic bottles at lunch. Finally, to really drive the message home, learners collaborated with film artist Mr. Terence to send out a video message to the whole school. We even learned all lyrics to the Good Garbage song by Tom Chapin. Enjoy the video and remember to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!!! Good Garbage
by John Forster & Tom Chapin © 1990 Limousine Music Co. & The Last Music Co. (ASCAP) I had a turkey dinner, threw the bones away. They hauled them to the county dump without delay. By the following Thanksgiving they had turned to clay. They're bio-de, bio-de, bio-degradable garbage. Good Garbage breaks down as it goes. That's why it smells bad to your nose. Bad garbage grows and grows and grows. Garbage is s'posed to decompose. Now styrofoam is bad, it lasts a thousand years. A packing peanut's born and never disappears. So crumple up your comics when you ship your chandeliers 'Cause comics are bio-de, bio-degradable garbage. Good Garbage breaks down as it goes. That's why it smells bad to your nose. Bad garbage grows and grows and grows. Garbage is s'posed to decompose. Every time that we buy food we also buy the package. Bottles, boxes, bags and cans, they end up in the garbage. Half of all our cash We're spending on our trash. For the sake of Mother Earth, Let's get our money's worth! Only buy bio-de, bio-degradable Good Garbage breaks down as it goes. That's why it smells bad to your nose. Bad garbage grows and grows and grows. Garbage, garbage, Garbage is s'posed to decompose. "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not" - Dr. Suess Mrs. Rooney's class wanted to celebrate Earth Day the artistic way! We read the Lorax by Dr. Suess and learners made commitments to help the environment. Learners wrote their environmental commitments on their very own truffula trees that they made out of recycled paper bags. They decorated the trees using scrap paper left over from our various collage projects through out the year. The Lorax says, "I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees!" So learners put on a mustache and spoke for their trees. We celebrated our hard work with a pizza party while we watched the original Lorax movie. Second Graders studied Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad and each class made a Freedom Quilt. Each student made a patch to contribute to the class quilt. Learners were inspired by the quilts of Gee's Bend Alabama and had to use their knowledge of polygons and partitioning shapes to create their quit patches. After completing the project we took a trip to the Ashe Center to view a quilt exhibition.
Creative Learners are writing, directing, and performing in their own original shadow puppet plays. Today we began video recording the plays with the help of Mr. Terence. Below are some "behind the scenes" pictures from our first day on the set!
This spring we are building an outdoor theater at YACS! The theater will be multipurpose performance space that will feature a removable puppet show theater and hooks to hang backdrops. The theater is designed to host small scale performances and can comfortably seat an entire class. My friend Elizabeth Chen is an architect and has generously donated her time to design the theater and YACS is currently fundraising to raise money to cover the building costs.
One of the ways we are fundraising is by having two Mardi Gras dress down days at YACS. The first dress down day was on Friday and our class played a special role by graphing the number of participants in each class to see which class raised the most money. There was a four-way tie between Ms. Monica, Ms. Curley, Ms. Belgard, and Ms. Haynes who all had 20 students participate in the dress down day. The winners will get a private concert by the YACS band! Our class also made bar graphs for our Friday math quiz to show how many students dressed down in second grade. Now that's real world problem solving! Brain breaks are scientifically proven to release endorphins which improves mood and cognitive function. GoNoOddle is a website that offers a variety of activities, such as Zumba, to get the kids up and moving. Each day we take brain breaks between lessons to keep our minds sharp and get our blood flowing so we are ready to learn!
|
|