Beacon Lesson Plan Library
Earth Bags
Ronja Ashworth
Santa Rosa District Schools
Description
Students will write and illustrate ideas for helping our environment on paper grocery bags that will be distributed at the local grocery store.
Objectives
The student writes legibly using manuscript form (for example, prints numbers and upper- and lower- case letters; uses left to right sequencing; spaces between words and sentences).
The student uses spelling approximations and some conventional spelling.
The student uses end punctuation and capitalizes initial words of sentences, names of people, `I`, days of the week, and months of the year.
The student uses complete sentences in writing.
Materials
-Paper grocery bags (at least one for each child)
-Pencils, crayons, and markers
-Books related to helping the environment (Examples: [Where There Once Was a Wood] by Denise Fleming, [Here Comes the Recycling Truck] by Meyer Seltzer, [Children Save the Rain Forest] by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent)
-Chart tablet
Preparations
1. Go to your local grocery store and ask the manager for some paper grocery bags. Explain to him/her that your students will decorate these bags and return them to the store so that they can be distributed as usual.
2. Gather materials.
Procedures
1. Assemble students in a large group. Ask them what would happen if we were under attack by giant garbage. Discuss their responses.
2. Explain to the students that, in a way, our environment is being overwhelmed by the amount of garbage that people produce. Discuss the term environment and explain that it is the world around us.
3. Discuss resources and describe some of our natural resources. Ask questions: Why do we need these resources? What if they werenąt available?
4. Read a few books about the environmental problems that we face. Discuss possible solutions to these problems. Write ideas on chart tablet. Use one complete sentence for each idea. Talk about the properties of each sentence.
5. Tell the students to think of one sentence that would tell a person something specific they could do to help our environment.
6. Give each student a paper grocery bag.
7. Have students write the sentence that they have chosen on the paper bag and illustrate.
8. If time permits, students should read their sentences to the class or to a small group.
9. Collect the bags and return them to the store that provided them. The bags will be distributed at the store as usual, and customers will enjoy seeing the beautiful illustrations and creative ideas for helping our environment.
Assessments
Use the grading rubric in the attached file. Use of a complete sentence documents Goal 3 Standard.
Extensions
1. This activity can also be done as a book report. Have students read a book, then write the title and author on the bag and illustrate.
2. Sunshine State Standard SC.G.2.1.2.1.1 is also addressed in this lesson, but not assessed.
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