The Final Sign

Here's our final sign.....

The Presentation

After some debate (and a paper fight) on how we would share our sign with our principal, I finally broke down and just invited her to our class Friday morning for a little culminating event. Writing letters explaining our sign was just too much for 1st graders, and well, we didn't have the time for a full blown lesson on letter writing. So instead, students worked individually on putting the reasons as to why we made our sign down on paper. The idea behind this assignment was for them to have something to say to our principal when we presented. Unfortunately, something came up and our principal wasn't able to be there when the time came for us to all read what we had written. No worries though - I got it all on camera! She was also able to come later so we could present, but due to time, she just took their writings to read. We were also recognized on the announcements for all the IB profile words we exhibited while making our sign!

Here are a few of there cute little writings -

"We made the sign becaues want to tell Mrs. Alderman.... littering is very very bad. People need to stop littering. Thes people need to throwe their trash in trashcan." - Gavin B.

"We mande the sign becaus It's not fair that mr. Woods has to clean up the trash." - LaRay H.

"We made a sine becaus it's not fair that Mr. Wods has to clean up the trash and us clean the trash." - Jacquelyn A.

"It's not fair that Mr. Wods has to clea u the trash. and We can not play on the playground. and do Not trow trash. and We can help Mr. Wods. Our school is not a dumpster. We are not a Dumpster." - Brittany E.

"It is so no one litters! So people will stop littering. The people hoo cum on here on the weekens will stop litter." - Iris

Almost a sign.....

Today, I started the grouting process! Who knew that it was this time consuming! Day one, put the sticky grout stuff on the board, scrap some lines into it, and put the tiles down. Now, wait 5 days.... ugh! Guess the major grouting will take place later this week.

Thankful for Dad's help!

So how did I spend my Thanksgiving?? You guessed it, working on the PSP, of course! Came home for a few days and well, thought I'd take advantage of my dad's "handy" work capabilities, since I have a lack thereof in that department. After our fantastic turkey dinner with all the trimmings, here we, wait scratch that, I mean here he is doing the hard work! Thanks, Dad, for building the frame for the tiles to go in!!

While he was cutting, I was putting a glossy coat on the tiles to not only protect them from the weather, but also make them look oh so pretty. :)

First we draw.... then we paint!

Per the art teacher's suggestion, we drew our pictures about not littering on the playground on the tiles before we went to art. Why you might ask? Because 35 minutes isn't long enough to paint masterpieces! This allowed us to jump right into painting when we arrived.



As you can see, drawing on tiles is so much fun!!



We then took our completed tiles to the art room. Students were given the primary colors and had to make the other colors - got a little art lesson in on what mixes with what to make different colors!

So who knew painting or rather tracing our pictures with paintbrushes was so hard! Students quickly found out their pencil drawn pictures weren't going to look the same when paint was applied. They all still did a really good job and were super excited to show off their work!

Here's a video of them in action!

Asking favors...

After deciding to paint tiles for a sign, we had to come up with a way (and time) to actually do the painting. One of the students (Rogelio) suggested maybe we paint in art. What a great idea! So, I took his idea to our art teacher, Mrs. Cohen, and asked if we could do a mini painting lesson Friday when we were scheduled to be in the art room. Being the wonderful art teacher that she is, she agreed and helped guide us in the right direction for our big painting adventure. Mrs. Cohen donated left over tiles from a previous project (SWEET! Saves me $$) and suggested we draw our pictures before we go to art, since we would only have 35 minutes to complete. Stay tuned to see how it all turns out!

And we have a saying for our sign!

Today we finalized our saying/slogan for our "no littering" sign on the playground. I started by putting all the sayings we came up with on the board, and for 1st graders, I have to say, they came up with some pretty cute sayings. (I added a few of my own as well.) I read each of them to the students and then explained "Keep-Scratch" which they actually picked up on pretty quickly. After several rounds, a few "Can you get behind another one on the board?", a couple modifications, and a small crying spell, we had our saying. The majority of the students really liked "Our school is not your dumpster! Don't litter!", however there were a few others that some students felt strongly about because they came up with them. One had to do with not littering on the playground, so we modified "school" to "playground" and the other said "Don't ever litter", in which we were able to modify "don't litter" to include "ever". With all that said - the saying on our no littering on the playground sign will read.... drum roll please.....

Our playground isn't your dumpster!
Don't ever litter!

Check out the following videos for a peek at our "Keep-Scratch" process!