What's Your Recycling Wish?

When we started this unit, I was thinking big. I really wanted the students to know where our garbage comes from and I wanted them to see that humans waste too much.

I was thinking of actually dissecting a garbage bag. My plan was to dump out a bag of garbage from my own home and sort out the contents. I imagined my kids categorizing everything as they rummaged through the waste. I imagined us going out to the blacktop outside where we have recess and making a huge circle in chalk. My students would tally and sort the garbage, then at the end, we would make a glorious pie chart.

It never came to be.

I consulted with our Kindergarten teacher (the best Kindergarten teacher you will never know) and we came up with a different plan.

I made these sheets that I put above our waste and recycle bins. The garbage bin has a picture of a landfill on it. Each week, every time someone throws something away, the students make a tally mark.

Above the recycling bins, I have different pictures of possible products that can be made. The students make a tally next to the picture of the product they would like to see made.


Putting it Into Practice

Last week the teachers did some spring cleaning around the school and we are in the process of throwing away a lot of junk that has collected.

I was able to take them to the garbage piles and I planned on discussing the importance of reducing what we use. Instead, we had conversations about how we could reuse the garbage.

Then in our elementary assembly we were discussing the environment. I was very proud of the answers the students gave at our last elementary assembly. A few of them showed that they have a firm grasp on the big concepts of our unit.