Thinking Outside the Trash Can

As part of our kindergarteners IB unit on garbage, the children have been exploring the effects garbage can have on the environment and how everyone can share in the responsibility to produce less, recycle correctly and of course reuse items.

For our students, this meant busily collecting recyclables to craft and create with. This really got exciting after visiting the zoo to look at the special art exhibit featuring sea creatures, created out of plastic garbage, collected at the Oregon Coast. Inspired by what they had seen, they went to work on sculptures of their own. Each class chose an animal and worked, either by themselves or as a team, on creating a seal and swarm of jellyfish.

Our Kindergarteners also collected pizza boxes over the last few weeks. The goal for these was to create board games. Which game? Well, they chose the game “Mühle” (aka Nine Men’s Morris), which is like a mixture of checkers and tic-tac-to. To help draw the playing board, our kiddos asked their 4th grade buddies to help. The 4th graders are currently learning about angles and parallels in math and therefore were happy and eager to help the younger students out.

After all the work, they of course got together to face their buddies in a one-on-one game.

But this was not all. Our Kindergarteners also decided to take some action and use one of their monthly trips to the nature park to pick up garbage. Armed with gloves and bags, and supported by brave parent volunteers, they went on a hunt for garbage in our neighboring wetlands. Afterall, you can never be too small or too big to make a difference!