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!

What can our sign say? What will it look like?

Today we took a few minutes and came up with some "sayings" for our no littering sign on the playground. We also drew a few pictures trying to figure out what it was going to look like. One idea - "Let's make all the playground equipment sad." I thought this was super cute! Students didn't finish their pictures in class, so they BEGGED to take them home and work on them. Can't wait to see what they come back with tomorrow!

Why is littering bad?

Today we did a mini lesson on what exactly trash was and why it's bad. Students talked about how the trash is bad for the playground and how, if it continued, they wouldn't be able to play on the playground.... which at this point, I had to jump in and explain that it wouldn't get that bad. Another comment a student made that made me smile was - "Mother nature would be sad!"

So what can we do?

Well, after a little debate, the 1st graders in room 1211 decided that making a sign to go out on the playground would be our best way to try and keep people from littering on the field. They kept wanting to just tell people to not litter, but after some scaffolding and probing, I was able to get them to realize that they personally couldn't stop EVERYONE from littering, hence the idea for the sign was born. One thing we talked about, was that if our sign kept just ONE person from littering, then it would be worth it. I'm so proud of my little activist!

"Save our Playground!"

One thing I've learned this year - never under estimate a First Grader! Today, we started brainstorming ways we could help clean up the trash left on our school playground. My students were all over this! Who knew that one little question - "Why is trash a problem on our playground?" would generate so much discussion. Unfortunately, I haven't mastered writing on the board and videoing, so here's a snippet of our our discussion....



Ideas we came up with regarding trash on the playground...
- Students and teachers could help Mr. Woods
- Go to little league practices and games and ask them to help clean up
- Purchase trash pick-up sticks to help pick-up
- Get more trash cans (need to count the number out there first)
- Make signs - "Save our Playground!"

A little background story - Garden Hills has a WONDERFUL playground and field in front of our school. The field is used on the weekends and evenings by local little league teams - specifically soccer, football and flag football. Every morning, when I get to school, the school custodian, Mr. Woods, is on the field picking up trash left by these teams. On Mondays, the 2 garbage cans by the stairs leading up to the school are overflowing with trash. Below is a short video of the field from the school.

Problems at School....

Today we discussed issues at school that the students thought were problems. We created a web of problems and came up with ways these could be solved. I really wish my camera was working because one of my students was very passionate when the topic of all the trash on the playground got brought up! A lot of my students joined in when she started voicing her concern for the playground, so, we decided to focus on "How to keep our playground clean?" for our project. Below are a few of the other topics we discussed....

First graders explain "problem".....

I took a few minutes after recess today to ask my students "What is a problem?" Most of them seemed to understand the term, however as more started to answer, the "answers" seemed to all start to be the same. Here are a few of their responses.....