#sol18 April 17, 2018
This week is Earth Week at our school and today we started with an “Earth Hour” where we were all encouraged to turn off the lights and AC and appreciate Earth (read as a subtle hint to get your butts outside). All of that sounds great, but a few realities soon set in…
- Without the lights on in our classroom even on a sunny day it is too dark to do much of anything.
- It is hot, hot, hot this week (real feel over 100 and humid), so without the room really heats up the room quickly.
- There is not much shaded outdoor space at our school so we would have to be flexible.
We headed outside a few minutes early and held our Morning Meeting at the covered play area. It was hard to hear their voices, but we did the best we could. Next we split up into groups to practice storytelling/reading the stories that we would share with our Prep Senior buddies (kindergarten at our school). The students had written these, so a practice beforehand was essential and worked out well out there.
By then the area started to get more crowded, so we looked for another outdoor space- sadly the peace garden was taken, as was the other garden area, so we ended up settled on a low wall near the front of the school. Here all the students had a chance to write or sketch what they wanted and enjoy the outdoor time (I wrote a poem with the last line being “and some are never quiet”, which tells you it may not have been as peaceful as I had imagined beforehand.
For our final few minutes, we went inside to a new space, the Community Room. The room is usually used for meetings, but the door had been left open, so we ventured in- it was hot! We read Brendan Wenzel’s Hello Hello, which seemed appropriate for Earth Week, as it focuses on the wonder of animals in our world and calls us to advocate for animals that are threatened.
We then headed back to our classroom and spent a few minutes cooling down (and started our next chapter book read aloud The Creature of the Pines, book 1 in the Unicorn Rescue Society series). We enjoyed the change of scenery but appreciated the air conditioning for sure!
Ms. Victor Reads 
This is a great reminder to appreciate what we have and in order to do that, we have to move outside our comfort zone to appreciate the comfort we might take for granted. Such a great message and school initiative!
I love your slice today. Just writing about the happenings of the day can just give that sense of calm that people need. I loved how kids appreciated the AC when they came in, though it was good to be outside. Heck, I’m glad you got them outside. We don’t do that nearly enough, even if it does disrupt our day! Thank you for sharing! Once we get out this mini-ice age, we might try to get outside too! 🙂