Poetry FOR the Planet

As part of our poetry unit students have been writing poems FOR the planet. We have been focusing on not just writing poems about animals or habitats but writing poems FOR the planet. The focus of our poems is to inform others of our changing planet and move them to make a change to save our planet and wildlife. 

We kicked off these interdisciplinary lessons by highlighting National Geographics Ocean Plastics Video (take the 3 minutes it's worth watching). From students' disgusted facial expressions, gasps of "Oh my goodness", and outcries of "Miss Klipfel, what do we do?" I knew they were hooked and ready to write inspiring poems. From here students explored a multitude of National Geographic Resources to deepen their understanding of the interconnectedness of the natural and human world. 

Students then wrote their brainstormed solutions to the plastic crisis on index cards and sorted them by local, global or regional scale. Students also discussed which perspectives these solutions fell under. This helped students think beyond just our school and local town. I knew students really understood this when they started saying things like "Amazon needs to make a global change" or "the local supermarket gives me plastic bags."

Finally, it was time for Poetry writing! Students felt empowered to take responsibility for the plastic crisis our ocean is facing and do something to change it. They understood that humans caused this problem and they were now going to be the ones to solve it. They did this all while using their newly acquired knowledge of our changing planet and wildlife as a result of the overabundance of plastic in the ocean from humans. Their words truly created waves of change...

Check out all our poems: Klipfel Homeroom & Brown Homeroom

Students' words were amazing but their actions were even better. Students came back from lunch enraged that plastic cups were being used-daily. Collaboratively they created a petition to get plastic ban from our school cafe. Soon names from other grades, cafeteria workers and even teachers were all over the petition. 

Next time you grab that plastic water bottle as you head out the door or head to Starbucks we ask you...

Plastic OR Planet?

Super Klipper Bowl II

Are you ready for some fffooooootball? 4th graders were geared up and ready to go Friday for the second annual Klipper Bowl. Teams burst through the tunnel (our classroom door), completed warm-up stretches, then huddled up to devise their game plan and come up with a team name. Next up was our coin toss with Referee Klipfel. Lucky teams who guessed the coin toss correctly had a 20-yard kickoff return while others started on the 10-yard line. Using perseverance and grit, teams quickly caught up.

Teams then ran "plays" from their playbook to gain yardage on the field. "Plays" included using different forms of texts (articles, media, poems, etc.) and completing activities. Players learned about who invented football and completed a crossword worth 40 yards.  Teams read a Wonderoplois article explaining what makes the Super Bowl so super and then completed a Google form for 25 yards. Teams could choose to run a play and apply all their figurative language knowledge to create football similes, metaphors, alliterations, personifications and onomatopoeias. The plays worth the most yards involved correctly placing team logos for all the Northeast and Southeast region teams (yes, we have been learning all about the Northeast and Southeast in Social Studies). Other plays included reading a passage about Tom Brady, learning about the history of the Super Bowl, and reading a football poem to determine the mood and purpose of the poem, all for different amounts of yards.  

Once teams correctly completed a play, they brought it to Referee Klipfel for the final check and to advance on the field. After gaining enough yardage to make it down the field, teams scored a touchdown! Referee Klipfel blew the whistle as we all threw our hands in the air to yell, "Touchdown!" Teams then got to shoot from two different marked spots for 1 or 2 extra points. Team cooperation and good sportsmanship earned extra yards or shots for points at ANY time throughout the game. "Good job", "keep working hard", and other forms of encouragement were heard around the field all day. No yellow flags needed to be thrown.   

Referee Klipfel and teams had one SUPER day! Klipper Bowl II is complete so now onto baseball season.