Crazy Week (week 7)

     Well this has been a crazy week. I suddenly feel really stressed out about everything having to do with our recycling project. We have been planning and doing little things all along to help prepare us for this, but for some reason I still feel very unprepared. We have only one more full working day and then we are done. The rest of the days we either won't be able to work at all or only parts of our group will be able to work together. I feel kind of bad for Carly because she is the only one that we don't have every class with, so she will have to work alone on some parts. I think that she will be fine though. Lara hasn't been here the past few days, so sometimes it up to me and Kendall. 
     Instead of doing the finals normally, we are doing one presentation for the three teachers. If all goes well it will be a 300 point final. This is huge and makes me really nervous. I hope we have done enough to earn that grade. The teachers keep saying how important it is that our presentation is perfect. We have been trying our hardest to make it that way. We decided to make a prezi. They look cool but are very simple to make. We have it almost done. There are a few things that we need to add but that won't take long. Our plan is for it to be perfect by Tuesday. Then we can work of speaking parts and the way that we are going to present it. 
     On Wednesday we had a great time teaching the 3rd graders. They had a lot of fun and the craft turned out great. It was really fun to get in front of a whole class and be a teacher. I like knowing that the the kids look up to us and think that what we are doing is cool. Overall, all of the kids were very well behaved. Mrs. F kind of just handed the whole lesson over to us and let us do everything. I was very happy that she did that. We will be teaching another class next Thursday. This is also the day of the showcase, but we have to get this class done so we will have to miss it. Its has been a great week, but I will be happy when this project is over. 

Wrapping Up the Week (week 6)

This week has been a little slow for our project. We have had a lot of interruptions with other school stuff. Now that our bugs are almost done we need to work on our final exam. I think that we are going to do a prezi. The prezi will be a great way to explain how our project has worked. We will be working all next week on this. It will be hard because we want each of us to have had an equal part of making the prezi, but only one of us can be on it at a time.  This project is quickly coming to an end. i hope we will be ready in time.

RECYCLE!

Coming to an End (week 6)

Today we go a lot done. I finally gave Mrs. T our lesson plan for the third graders and she liked it.We finished gluing the eyes and legs onto the bottles. I burned my arm really bad with the hot glue gun, but I'm ok. I think that we are going to be teaching the 3rd graders next week on 3 different days. I feel like this project has gone by so fast. We have learned a lot and have become better friends through it. I am really excited to teach the 3rd. Carly and Kendall will be helping the kids make the craft while Lara and I teach the PowerPoint. Can't Wait!

Excitment! (week 6)

Today was great! We have all 75 bottles that we will need for the bug craft. Some of them don't have lids so we might need to collect a few more that do. We started gluing the eyes and legs on the bottle. It takes a lot more time than we thought it would but it needs to be done. Mrs. F has all the pipe cleaners and googly eyes that we will need. The bugs are really cute (see picture). We are all very impressed with how they turned out. I can't wait to see kids decorate them and make them uniquely theirs.

Working as a Team (week 5)

This week we have learned how to work together as a team. We have had our plan and now we are actually making it happen. This week we collected a lot of stuff. We weren't expecting to get so much participation in the first week. As a team we have run into a few problems, well actually a lot of problems. Though this we have all learned to try again and stick together no matter what. I have learned a lot while doing this project. I have realized that where there is a will there is a way. We were discouraged but we were determined to make our project work, no matter what. 

QR Code

Scan this code with your smartphone and it will bring you to our website. 

Powerpoint #1

Click the link and you will be able to see the powerpoint that we plan on showing the 3rd graders.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1FSVATKQiyX4d07fKXgEY5skKqQmrNgvp55KCMZ9g-MXm_M1W_k-M_qBVi80M/edit

Recycling Plastic Video

Our corny little video, but it will let kids know about our recycling project :)

Plastic Bottles

We have a bunch of these. We are really excited about our craft that we will be making with them.

Storing the Craft (week 5)

Well today was interesting. Once we got the bottles and washed them out, we had one problem. Where were we planning to store a bunch of two-liter bottles? For the first few days we had stuffed them in our lockers. Mine had the most, because I don't share with anyone. Every time I opened my locker to get something out of it, a bunch of bottles would spill out. It was pretty funny and everyone that saw my locker asked the question "why do you have a bunch of bottles in there". Anyways we were able to store them in Mrs. F room. She wasn't thrilled about keeping them for us but I think it will work for a little while. We hope to start the project in two weeks.

Success! (week 5)

Yesterday one of the third grade teachers came to our class room. She told us that her class had collected a ton of bottles. We went down to her room and there were 18 of them all ready. We were thrilled. We feel like our project is actually happening and coming together. All of our planning is finally paying off. Today we washed out each bottle, so that the kids don't have a sticky bottle. We are working our way toward a successful project!

Wraping Up the Week (week 4)

This week has been great! We have our plan (finally) and we are putting things into action. Now that we have the plastic video made, we are going to show the school it tomorrow. If all goes well we can stat collecting on Monday. We all worked hard and had it set in our mind that we were going to get something done everyday. We were surprised to find that some of the recycling bins that we put around the school, were filled. Although some of the items in the bins were ones that could not be recycled, most of it was cardboard and plastic that we needed. Carly was going to bring the recyclables home to recycle it. It has been a great week!

YOUTUBE (week 4)

Today we finished editing the video that we have been working on. We showed it to Mrs. Thornton. She liked it! This is great news because last time we attempted to make a video one teacher was not a big fan of it. We have been trying to upload the video to youtube but it is not letting us do it at the school. When I get home I will have to upload it. We plan to have all the teachers view it tomorrow or Friday. We did a lot today and hopefully we can get a lot of participation collecting the plastic bottles.

Making the Video (week 4)

Today we have made a lot of progress. We taped a video that talks about recycling plastic. It took a few tries to get it right (I kept laughing every time). We went to the computer lab to put the video together. We made almost all of it and then got kicked off the computer, because there was a class coming in.  When we went to a new computer our video had only saved on that one computer in the lab saved. Sadly our editing will have to wait until tomorrow. For the most part today was a great working day.

Pig Craft

This is the craft that we are considering doing for the 3rd graders:)

The Art Project

Mrs. F told us to come up with a few ideas for the 3rd grade craft. We have been looking online for great ideas, and have come up with a few. The only problem now is finding time to talk with her. She seems to be busy and there is only one time in the day that we can plan with her. The good thing is, that she is willing to help us get a good grade. She wants us to help prepare the craft supplies so that they are ready. This is fine with us, because we have the free time and it helps her out. Talking to her yesterday was very encouraging. I am really glad that we get to work with Mrs. F. We are waiting for a date to start collecting items for the craft.

Trial and Error

So far we have had a lot of trial and error. The teachers said that they are going to let us learn from our mistakes, and not give us many answers. This is fine, but so far I feel like we have failed with everything that we have tried. Our original plan is nothing like what we are planning to do now. We talked to Mrs. F yesterday, and she is going to help us. We are going to collect recyclables to make a craft in her class. During the class we are going to be teaching the 3rd graders about recycling. Right now the teachers are happy with our plan and hopefully we can make it all happen. 

On the Right Path

The past few days we have had a lot of breakthroughs. On Thursday and Friday we really got our whole plan together. We had a lot of ideas and some we had to shoot down because they weren’t realistic. I think that we finally have exactly what we want to do. First we are going to have a paper drive on May 5th. The community can drop off newspaper, printing paper, and any other kind of paper there is. The newspaper will go to a group who is making flower pots out of it and the other will be put in the paper gator. This is a great way to bring our community together. The other event that we are putting together is a contest for every classroom in our school. We want kids to bring in materials and the kids and their teachers can build a sculpture with the items. The class that has the best sculpture will get to plant a tree on the school grounds. Right now everything is going great. Lets hope we don’t run into any problems.

Recycling Game

This is an awesome recycling game that includes lots of facts.
http://www.naturebridge.org/garbology.php

The Goal

By the end of the school year we want everyone in the school to recycle. Maybe by the end of our project other schools with be inspired to recycle, too. I believe that one person recycling hardly makes a different, but when companies and schools recycle, we can change the world. Yes, some companies make you pay to recycle, but some don’t. We have found a couple places in Grand Rapids where we can simply drop off the items we collect and they will do the rest. I think that the four of us will take turns dropping the stuff off. Right now the only thing that we are waiting on is bins to put the recycling in. Hopefully we will get those by the end of the week. Our project in coming together perfectly.

Getting It All Together

Yes, our school uses a paper gator, but we wanted to recycle more than that. We came up with the idea to get the whole school to work together and bring in recyclable items. For the first two weeks we are going to recycle cardboard, the second two weeks recycle plastic bottles, and the third two weeks batteries. We are going to have bins at the end of each hallway, at school. Our principle will be sending out emails to the parents to let them know about what we’re doing. Today, we made posters to hang at every drinking fountain at school, so kids can know about it too. We want kids from kindergarten through eighth grade to participate. To inform people further, we are going to make a video to show in each classroom, telling what we are going to be doing, and how each item is recycled.

Starting Out

In the  past two weeks my team and I have really enjoyed working together. We all get along and use each others ideas to help build our project. On the first day we agreed on solving the problem of people recycling. We want to encourage people to recycle, and realize how easy it is. LR reminded us that this is the only world that we have and we need to take care of it. Together we were going to figure out a way to raise this kind of awareness. There are so many ways that we could do this. We thought it would be a good idea to start recycling in our school.