Earth Day

These kids never cease to amaze me. Because they aren't shy about telling me all sorts of things about their lives, I not only hear about things their parents wouldn't want me to know and also about everything that comes into their brains. At any given time, I could hear things blurted out of the blue like, "I got a new shirt." Or "My mom is sick." Or "I saw a big worm outside in the dirt." Or "My birthday is in 3 months." But another thing that amazes me is what they know at such a young age.

These kids know their stuff.

As part of Earth Day this week, I did a project with the kindergartners and first graders. First I read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Then I gathered a bunch of scraps of paper from the teachers' work room to do a recycled paper art project. I didn't really have any expectations, except that it may get a little out of hand with glue and scissors. Remember that day with the glue? Well, I got smart. We now have glue sticks.

From the time I explained to them that we were going to be talking about how we need to take care of our earth, they immediately chimed in. We talked about recycling. We talked about animals and how we need to take care of them. We talked about taking care of plants and what they need to grow. And these were only kindergartners.

During the story, I heard so many kids empathizing with the animals in the story. They were actually mad at the Once-ler who made his factory bigger and bigger and bigger, and drove all the animals out of the area.

At the end of the story, I asked them to tell me what they would do with the last Truffula seed. Their answers were priceless. I got a lot of "I would plant it in the ground." But what amazed me was how they built on this concept. One first grader said, "I would give it to my grandma because she loves plants." Another one said, "I would plant it and take care of it, and protect it. Then I would get more seeds from that plant and plant those. And then there would be a lot of trees." One girl talked about an elaborate security system that she would rig up to the plant so that it couldn't be cut down.

Can you imagine if these ideas came to fruition in areas where plants or animals are endangered? I can just imagine some of the kids standing with their hands on their hips and pointing their fingers at the people in bulldozers or people polluting. That would be so fun to watch.