This was our last time going to Hudson and teaching the second graders about helping our planet. This lesson was dealing with integrating dance and movement into the lesson plan to get the students up and active. So many times now in schools, it's becoming more and more important to get students up and moving and engaged with various movement activities. We took this into our own hands and made sure we were planning a lesson with dance and still relating it to Earth Day!
The we first read a book to the students: It's Earth Day! by Mercer Mayer. This book has a main character who learns about Earth Day in school, and wants to do something to save the polar bears. He starts by unplugging the computer and turning off the lights, then turns off the water when you aren't using it. He also plants trees and made signs to help make people more aware to reduce, reuse, and recycle. In the end, he finds that just by doing all of these things can help! Even if his climate control machine doesn't work.
After reading the book, as a group we talked about ways they can help the planet using examples from the book and from past discussions.
We made sure to remind everyone that April 22nd is Earth Day and to think of something on that day where they can help our Earth. We moved into playing a song that dealt with helping our planet and working together to help keep our planet clean. We had to play it through twice, once to get the motions down and another time to dance bigger and with more energy. It took the kids a little bit to get comfortable with dancing, even with us doing the motions with them. We also played a GoNoodle video to continue the movement theme before our next group activity.
Since this was out last day, we took all the groups from the 2nd grade class and went back into the room to throw a little "Earth Day/ last day" party. We played Earth Day bingo, where we had bingo cards with images of recycling, nature, and anything dealing with the planet. The kids each got skittles to use as their markers, and myself and another UNI student were able to call out the pictures. When the student would get a bingo, we had fun Earth Day bookmarks for them to choose from as their prize. All of the students seemed to have fun with this activity!
I have enjoyed this field experience at Hudson Elementary! It has been a new setting with five of us UNI students working with a group of eight second graders. I hope to still connect with this school in the future and I am thankful for another experience in the schools!
The we first read a book to the students: It's Earth Day! by Mercer Mayer. This book has a main character who learns about Earth Day in school, and wants to do something to save the polar bears. He starts by unplugging the computer and turning off the lights, then turns off the water when you aren't using it. He also plants trees and made signs to help make people more aware to reduce, reuse, and recycle. In the end, he finds that just by doing all of these things can help! Even if his climate control machine doesn't work.After reading the book, as a group we talked about ways they can help the planet using examples from the book and from past discussions.
We made sure to remind everyone that April 22nd is Earth Day and to think of something on that day where they can help our Earth. We moved into playing a song that dealt with helping our planet and working together to help keep our planet clean. We had to play it through twice, once to get the motions down and another time to dance bigger and with more energy. It took the kids a little bit to get comfortable with dancing, even with us doing the motions with them. We also played a GoNoodle video to continue the movement theme before our next group activity.Since this was out last day, we took all the groups from the 2nd grade class and went back into the room to throw a little "Earth Day/ last day" party. We played Earth Day bingo, where we had bingo cards with images of recycling, nature, and anything dealing with the planet. The kids each got skittles to use as their markers, and myself and another UNI student were able to call out the pictures. When the student would get a bingo, we had fun Earth Day bookmarks for them to choose from as their prize. All of the students seemed to have fun with this activity!
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