Teach Learn Thive and GROW! Growing the Empathy Advantage in the Classroom

A Sweet Idea for a Mother's Day gift! This fun and hands-on science activity will be a hit in your classroom. I have done it every year and both kids and moms love it. All you need is a plastic cup/container, grass seed, soil, a photo of each student, water and sunshine! Students plant grass seeds and grow grass to look like "hair" and when the grass gets super long it is time to place a photo of the student's face on the container! The tag line that goes with the gift is, "I love you with every hair on my head!" couldn't find a photo from last year, so I have one of me as an example! My kiddos have them growing in our class greenhouse right now. Grass grows super-fast so you have time to still make this happen. It is pretty cheap to do about $20.00 and is priceless as your kids get to nurture and pour love into their plants and how sweet that they give it away as a gift! Check out my TpT store for the complete resource. Happy Trails! ...

EARTH DAY is right around the corner! Ok, I hate wasting paper on student worksheets! I try to include activities where we can reuse materials while focusing on hands-on activities. I recently just wrote a shared reading book that I plan on incorporating into my literacy block and I included a student contract to help my kiddos commit to making three changes that will positively impact the earth. I am trying to use as little paper as I can (which is really hard to do). I usually do a trash art project but this year I want to step it up a bit and trying to think outside the box on other crafts or projects we can do this year! As you can see, I have just started to plan and I am excited to use this cool website I just stumbled upon called Planet Pals (www.planetpals.com). I am not affiliated by any means with this website, just found it and thought I would post on my own blog. I hope it helps me figure out what recycled projects my first graders can do to get them thinking about ...