For our first project this year every student made a pinwheel for peace. This program fit perfectly into my district's graduate learner goals. Two of our main focuses are Global Literacy and Environmental Sustainability. PERFECT! Also, we have Learner Qualities of the Month, and September's is Caring. In art class, we talked about different forms of peace; from personal peace (being restful, relaxed), to a peaceful environment, all the way to global peace. I linked it to Caring by asking them "If every single person was caring all the time, would we have a peaceful school?" I saw a lot of "ah-ha" expressions at that one!
September 21st is the International Day of Peace. I asked the classroom teachers to bring their class outside on that day and "Plant" their pinwheels somewhere around the school. At one school we focused the pinwheels around the school sign and at the other we put them all the way around the school.
At the end of the day we had an all-school meeting (our name for an assembly) outside where we brought it all together. The school that planted them around the building created a parade around the school to check out all of the pinwheels, then walked around a second time to pick their pinwheel and take them home.
It turned out great. EVERY pinwheel worked!
I was a little nervous to do it with the kinders. The thought of giving them scissors on their very first visit to me made me cringe a little. It turned out great though! And now I know that all of them can handle scissors. If you're interested in participating in this project next year, you can print off the template at the Pinwheels for Peace website.
2 comments:
I've done the Pinwheels for Peace for the past 3 years, but missed this year due to a lack of support. Sad, huh? I put out a hopeful email, but nobody came forward to help, and the day came and went without a comment about what we were missing. I'm wondering how everyone else does the assembly of the pinwheels. I found it pretty crazy trying to assemble them all with the pins through erasers and used a team of moms that wasn't available this year. So I wonder if there's a faster easier way to assemble I haven't thought of.
With the exception of the kindergarteners, I had the kids do it. I just made myself available for them to come up for help if they needed it. Most of them did fine and only needed help getting it loosened up so it would spin. I did the kinders' myself, but we have 4 classes of 17 or 18. I just whipped them together quick after school the day they made them so I only had the 17 or 18 to do at a time.
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