Did you do anything special to celebrate Earth Day? I did and many people thought I would not be able to accomplish it. What did I do? I went 24 hours without TV, radio or computer. Yes 24 hours. As I am on Easter holidays I thought that would be a great thing to do to help Earth. I already recycle and have only one light on at a time in the house.
Another thing I have noticed happening in my neighbourhood and on my way to work is the different birds which are appearing and disappearing at certain times of the year. There is a lagoon near our school which at the moment has pelicans, cormorants, curlews, plovers and pied oystercatchers. Many of these birds are migratory shorebirds and may have travelled thousands of kilometres to settle at the lagoon for a few weeks.
So this week’s challenges are about celebrations and migrations, hence the title ‘Moving time’.
Students and classes
Activity 1 – Earth Day
Did your class do anything relating to Earth Day? Here in Australia it fell on Good Friday, part of our Easter celebrations. But perhaps you did some discussion earlier in the week during class time. If you didn’t do anything, maybe you could write a post about how you help the earth now both at home and at school.
Activity 2 – Celebrations – war
In Australia we are on an Easter Break, but we also have ANZAC Day celebrations on today (Monday 25th). This is a time to remember those people who have participated in war and to remember them and their service to our country. In November we also have Remembrance Day where we have a minute’s silence on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Do you have any special celebrations in your country to remember those who have fought for your country?
Activity 3 – Celebrations – family
I love doing family history and genealogy. Often I will organize a family reunion where all those people from one side of the family will get together, have a barbecue or picnic lunch, visit the local church for a family service and walk around the town in which our relatives lived a hundred years ago.
- Do you ever have big family get-togethers?
- What do you talk about?
- Can you remember a story told at one of these gatherings?
Activity 4 – Migration – people
Has your family always lived where you are living now? Have you ever lived in far away places? Maybe early members of your family have migrated from another country to where you live now. How do you think they might have felt moving to the other side of the world? Interview some of your older relatives and find out about their early lives. How is it different to your life as a child?
Activity 5 – Migration – animals
On one of the animal shows on TV, they have had a series called ‘Great Migrations’ where they have been following many of the herds of African animals as well as others like caribou and birds. Have you noticed any animals in your area which are there at certain times of year but then they disappear? Do some research on one of these animals or birds. Now tell your readers all about the animals you see around your area.
Activity 6 – Let’s save Earth
Here are a variety of activities you might consider doing.
- Write a comic strip as a hero wanting to save some aspect of the environment.
- Your worries regarding the environment – what can you do as a student?
- Create an animoto about the environment – maybe you worry about the polar bears. Find images from links on this post.
- Write a post about an environmental field trip you went on, maybe to the rubbish dump or cleaning up a creek etc.
- Create a movie about saving the environment – check out Abbey’s from last year.
Thanks to Tracy Watanabe and the students in Mrs Martinez’s class for many of the ideas for this week’s posts.
Original image: ‘Seated A.I.F. private‘
by: Brett B.
Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
PDF 
I am a middle school teacher who retired in 2012 but still loves teaching. In my spare time I enjoy tracing my family history and helping others with their genealogy as well as chatting with my friends around the world. But most of all, I enjoy travelling and visiting new places.
Hi Miss W,
I really like this week’s challenge, specially the animal migration one. I was in a beach without internet during easter holidays so I couldn’t do the testing time challenge. I will try and catch up though!
please check my blog
http://mayasmusings.weebly.com
Maya
Hello Miss W,
The activity I like the most of this week challenge is
the one of creating a movie about helping the environment but I know a website very cool fro doing animations and movies! It’s http://goanimate.com/
Visit my blog
http://alejandroblog.weebly.com/
The best way I see it is to make one on Windows Movie Maker and then upload it to Glogster or YouTube.
Blogged about my experience with this challenge http://wwwatanabe.blogspot.com/2011/04/bloggers-groove.html
Thanks for the kind words on the challenge idea. The kiddos loved it!
Kind regards,
Tracy Watanabe