First Graders Lead the Charge on Recycling at Fletcher Elementary

The Fletcher Elementary learning community values environmental stewardship. This month Mrs. Hurt’s first graders have been learning about recycling practices.

Mrs Hurt read students a wide variety of books about recycling.

Students explored reading Ready to Recycle together as a class as well as to themselves, and then they got to add color to the book. The next day the class read a second book, about the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) and began sharing ideas for how they can REDUCE (ie. use snack/lunch containers we can rinse and use again, rather than plastic bags) and things they can REUSE (ie. use clean paper lunch bags to make puppets, use empty jars to hold our pencils). Students were very excited to share their learning and ideas with the other classes. They feel empowered that they will be “teachers” during our school-wide meeting. First grade learning has included: a review of the reasons WHY we recycle (caring for the environment, landfills are getting full, etc), a review of WHAT we can recycle (we have modeled this since the first day of school and practiced sorting items that CAN and CANNOT be recycled), a review of HOW we can properly recycle (noticing any food in a container and rinsing it out first, looking at the list of items and guidelines from the NWSWD (NorthWest Solid Waste District) on classrooms flyers (which we plan to make for every classroom).In addition to this, every day students are applying what they learned as they recycle everything from their plastic lunch containers to scraps of construction paper. More importantly, they know WHY they are recycling and are ready to teach others about the importance of recycling for the planet.