Put a Penguin On It! – Artists for Climate Change PILOT
This was a one-day session I carried out at The TARDIS at Chapel Break Infant. The class was YEAR of about 12 children and included some students for whom English was not their home language. While carrying out this session I had the support of the two staff members who usually work at The TARDIS.
Aim: The aim of the session was to use stories and creative writing to raise students’ awareness of things that are good and bad for the climate and to encourage behavioural change to protect the environment such as recycling more, walking to school where possible, etc.
Target Age: 5-7 (depending on ability). NB the art activities could be quite challenging if ‘good’ products are required, however the aim is more to help the students learn about the environment rather than create works of art.
Key Skills: knowledge of what damages and benefits the environment, language awareness, discussion and reasoning skills, drawing and colouring.
Resources:
Steps:
1. Introduce myself and lesson theme. Set listening task – one group listens for what the problem the penguins are facing is, one group listens for why this problem is happening (bad things) and one group listens for how we can fix it (good things).
2. Read story.
3. Feedback and discuss good and bad things.
4. Discuss: How could the penguins encourage the humans to do the good things and not the bad things? (Advert, book, poster, song....) Intro idea of a book to remind the humans what is good and bad.
5. Penguin beetle. (Guide template shows how to draw a penguin in 6 steps e.g. body, wings, feet, beak, face.... You cannot start until you roll a 6 – the body – and then you have to roll the number to draw a body part. In small groups of 3 or 4. Continue till someone finishes/have a specific time limit.)
6. The Book: show the different pre-prepared pages of the book. Discuss whether these should have a ‘happy’ penguin (because they are good for the environment e.g. cycling) or a ‘sad’ penguin (because they are bad for the environment e.g. lots of cars).
7. Students in pairs or individually take responsibility for pages. They have to draw on either happy or sad penguins and make sure the pages are coloured in beautifully so that people like to look at the book. NB discuss how you could show if the penguins are happy or sad e.g. smiling/thumbs up/down/tears/holding a flower/rain cloud above them....
8. As a break (if there is time – although this is quite a good time for a lunch break) you could get the students to play ‘musical icebergs’ – like musical chairs, but they are sitting on pieces of white paper which are icebergs.
9. The Penguins’ Plea: show the students the poem where the penguins are asking the humans to save them. Read it through with the gaps and discuss what might be in the gaps.
10. The students in groups try to fill in the gaps in big versions of the poem. You could see if they can generate the words themselves , or give them the words and see if they can work out where they could/should go. (Teachers will need to support.)
11. As a class decide what best/correct version is and fill in the poem bit of the banner.
12. Reveal rest of banner (unroll it). Explain that this is to remind people what is good and bad for the environment. Discuss which things are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ for the environment. (This is where we got to in the pilot.)
13. If time, as a group we then count the number of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things, and the class splits into 2 groups and draws enough happy or sad penguins for the banner.
14. The students can then, if they have time later on, decorate the banner. They could use recycled materials, perhaps, e.g. to make the forests and the factories (factories could be made of newspapers). This banner can then be hung up in a suitable location.
15. It would also be great to complete the book e.g. make a front cover and back for it, and bind it together (could use e.g. recycled shoelaces to tie it together). This book could then e.g. live in the library.
Aim: The aim of the session was to use stories and creative writing to raise students’ awareness of things that are good and bad for the climate and to encourage behavioural change to protect the environment such as recycling more, walking to school where possible, etc.
Target Age: 5-7 (depending on ability). NB the art activities could be quite challenging if ‘good’ products are required, however the aim is more to help the students learn about the environment rather than create works of art.
Key Skills: knowledge of what damages and benefits the environment, language awareness, discussion and reasoning skills, drawing and colouring.
Resources:
- Who Will Save Us? Rebecca Morch.
- Dice, example sheet, and sheets to fill in for Penguin Beetle.
- Book sheets (Jess) to photocopy, draw on and colour in, plus colouring pens and pencils.
- Poem sheets (big) with blank spaces + the words (cut up) to go in the gaps (optional).
- Banner.
- Paper (including large white pieces for the ‘icebergs’ if the musical chairs is going to be played.
- CD and CD player (for musical chairs).
Steps:
1. Introduce myself and lesson theme. Set listening task – one group listens for what the problem the penguins are facing is, one group listens for why this problem is happening (bad things) and one group listens for how we can fix it (good things).
2. Read story.
3. Feedback and discuss good and bad things.
4. Discuss: How could the penguins encourage the humans to do the good things and not the bad things? (Advert, book, poster, song....) Intro idea of a book to remind the humans what is good and bad.
5. Penguin beetle. (Guide template shows how to draw a penguin in 6 steps e.g. body, wings, feet, beak, face.... You cannot start until you roll a 6 – the body – and then you have to roll the number to draw a body part. In small groups of 3 or 4. Continue till someone finishes/have a specific time limit.)
6. The Book: show the different pre-prepared pages of the book. Discuss whether these should have a ‘happy’ penguin (because they are good for the environment e.g. cycling) or a ‘sad’ penguin (because they are bad for the environment e.g. lots of cars).
7. Students in pairs or individually take responsibility for pages. They have to draw on either happy or sad penguins and make sure the pages are coloured in beautifully so that people like to look at the book. NB discuss how you could show if the penguins are happy or sad e.g. smiling/thumbs up/down/tears/holding a flower/rain cloud above them....
8. As a break (if there is time – although this is quite a good time for a lunch break) you could get the students to play ‘musical icebergs’ – like musical chairs, but they are sitting on pieces of white paper which are icebergs.
9. The Penguins’ Plea: show the students the poem where the penguins are asking the humans to save them. Read it through with the gaps and discuss what might be in the gaps.
10. The students in groups try to fill in the gaps in big versions of the poem. You could see if they can generate the words themselves , or give them the words and see if they can work out where they could/should go. (Teachers will need to support.)
11. As a class decide what best/correct version is and fill in the poem bit of the banner.
12. Reveal rest of banner (unroll it). Explain that this is to remind people what is good and bad for the environment. Discuss which things are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ for the environment. (This is where we got to in the pilot.)
13. If time, as a group we then count the number of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things, and the class splits into 2 groups and draws enough happy or sad penguins for the banner.
14. The students can then, if they have time later on, decorate the banner. They could use recycled materials, perhaps, e.g. to make the forests and the factories (factories could be made of newspapers). This banner can then be hung up in a suitable location.
15. It would also be great to complete the book e.g. make a front cover and back for it, and bind it together (could use e.g. recycled shoelaces to tie it together). This book could then e.g. live in the library.
