I speak for the trees!

Happy Earth Day! Today we celebrated the earth that God gave us and discussed why we shouldn't muck it up!

We read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. This is a pretty long book, to be honest. I expected that my students, who are just three and won't be turning four until the summer and into the next school year, would not be able to sit for the entire book. Imagine my surprise when not only did they sit, but they paid attention! They asked questions! They were interested in it and I had all of their attention. Way to go, Dr. Seuss! Reading this book went well over our usual ten minute story time into a 25 minute story time. I'm so proud of them for sitting. They were especially focused on the fact that you never see the Once-ler's face. They kept hoping it would show up!

After reading The Lorax we talked about the earth that we were given. I teach at a Christian school, so we took the line of discussing that God gave us this earth to take care of. We talked about how we should all be like a Lorax and speak for the trees and the animals, so they can keep living with us on the earth. They really grasped the connection between the animals having to leave and the trees getting cut down. It was totally awesome! I'm not going to lie, it brought a little tear to my eye.

We created our own Truffula Trees, using an idea I found on the internet. I can't remember where now! The kids loved it because they finally got to make rivers with the glue! Like any other preschool teacher, time spent with liquid glue means time spent repeating "A dot is a lot!" and "Dots! Not lakes!" My students ALWAYS want to make rivers and lakes with the glue, which is usually not necessary and we're working hard on not being wasteful! This is our finished product. Well, almost. They pasted pictures of themselves in the "unless" stand, because "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not." We used Easter grass for the truffula tops. They aren't as soft as described in the books, but it gets the visual across.

After nap, we took a hike! Our preschool is in a fairly developed area, and we're sitting literally in a parking lot with very little nature around. We try to take hikes as often as we can, but there's only so many times you can look at the same grass. And the grass is sprayed with pesticides, so there aren't even bugs! Today on our Earth Day hike, we picked up trash! Clean up the Earth! We filled one small plastic bag and then quickly washed our hands!

I think it was a good Earth Day. Tomorrow is going back to the farm and going to be totally awesome.