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Happy Earth Week!
We're so excited for a great Earth Week this year at Central! The Green Team kids have created fun events for every day - including a bonus day for Friday's day off of school! See the schedule above for each day's events.
Week Long Challenge: Being Green Rocks!
Using either an environmental theme or a kindness theme decorate a rock and bring it to school! Place your rock near where you line up to come into school. At the end of the week you can take your rock back home, or you can leave it and the Green Team will move it to the school garden.
Here's some examples to get your creative ideas going:
Monday - Lights Out Day! In an effort to reduce energy, Central School will dim or turn off as many lights as possible today. Hallways, classrooms, Learning Commons, and our gyms! Remember this is a super easy way to save energy! When you leave a room, turn off the light! Use a lamp instead of an overhead light if you can. If a room has a dimmer, dim the lights when you can.
Tuesday - Walk to School Day! On Tuesday save even more energy by walking to school instead of driving! Once you arrive at Central, line up at your door normally. We'll have music playing at each door for a dance break before school starts!
Remote Learners - you can join in too! If your plans for the day involve traveling somewhere, try to walk there instead of driving - or just take a walk around the block.
Wednesday - Save Paper Day! Today we want you to be really aware of your paper use. Did you use the whole sheet? Can you use the back of your sheet instead of a new piece of paper? If you can't use it anymore make sure to recycle in. At school our recycling bins for paper are blue - make sure only paper goes in the blue bins!
Thursday - Spirit Day! Today's half day celebration is easy - wear blue or green to show your Earth Day spirit! If you share a photo on Twitter use the hashtag #FoxesGoGreen so we can see it too! Your photo just might end up here!
Friday - Bonus Day! Today students have off from school, but the Green Team wanted to provide an optional event. If the weather's nice, go for a walk, take a bike ride, draw an Earth Day message in chalk, etc. If the weather's not nice, watch a nature documentary or one of these nature cameras!
Reuse the 90% Day!
At our January meeting, the Green Team learned a little about the impact the fashion industry has on our environment. Scroll down to watch some videos about the topic!
Hand-Me-Down : A hand-me-down is a piece of clothing that someone older than you has worn. It doesn't fit them anymore, but it fits you - so they hand it down to you to wear!
Thrift: A thrifted item is an item that belonged to someone that you don't know before it belonged to you. It may have come from a thrift store, garage sale, or fashion reuse website.
Up-Cycle: To up-cycle something means to make something old into something new. Some examples may be to take an old shirt and decorate it with paints and ribbons to make it new, or to cut and re-sew a pair of pants into a new skirt.
Here's some of the Green Team members in our commercial to further explain Reuse the 90% Day!
Fashion and the Environment
At our January meeting, the Green Team learned a little about the impact the fashion industry has on our environment. Below are links to the videos we watched. Even if you're not a Green Team member, these are really interesting. We talked a little bit about how when we might not have a true solution to an environmental problem, just being aware that the problem exists can help!
Green Team members - check your Google Classroom for more information about the meeting and upcoming events.
These are the two we watched during the meeting:
And here are the ones we didn't get a chance to view yet:
Holiday Lights Drive 2020
The Green Team is proud to host our annual holiday lights drive! In cooperation with the village of Wilmette, we'll collect string lights at Central school to be recycled properly. Bring any and all string lights - any length or color - to the front of the building and deposit them in the collection bin located outside.
Since the Green Team will be unable to sort the collection in person, we ask that you please remove all bags and packaging from the lights before you drop them off. Garlands, live greens and wreaths will not be accepted.
The drive will run from December 7th to January 29th
Help us keep our community GREEN!
GREEN TEAM 2020-2021
Congratulations to this year's Green Team members! Our first meeting will be on Thursday October 22nd.
Details coming soon!
GREEN TEAM 2020-2021
Attention all 4th graders!!
Do you have great ideas?
Do you love being environmentally friendly?
Do you want to get to learn a little bit more about how to stay GREEN?
Join the GREEN TEAM!
Applications are in your Google Classrooms.
Just click on the link and fill out the form.
All applications are due by October 16th.
(No late applications will be accepted)
Our first meeting will be on October 22nd (weather permitting) during 4th grade lunch and recess time. More info to come!
Green Team is going to look very different this year - but we are sure
you'll make it great!
Pop Tab Update
Unfortunately we are suspending the Pop Tab collection for the rest of 2020. We are hopeful we can start it back up again next calendar year, but right now we are unable to safely collect and deliver pop tabs.
Please consider keeping your collection going at home!
We will let you know when we'll start recollecting them at school.
GREEN TEAM 2019-2020
It wasn't the way we wanted to end our year, but we were able to meet a few more times as a Green Team from home this spring.
Mrs. Dietrich & Ms. Potakis are so incredibly proud of this wonderful, imaginative and enthusiastic group this year! We couldn't have picked a better group to have to have gone through this with!
All the best at Highcrest and beyond - and STAY GREEN!
Earth Week 2020
We were so pleased to have so many people take part in our Earth Week projects from home this year! Check out some of our favorite photos of Central students staying GREEN!
Kay R. and her fox sculpture
Amelie's great poster!
Need a "Green" Indoor activity?
Here's some fun ideas from the Green Team:
1) Take care of your family's houseplants!
2) Grow some herbs indoors that you can use later for cooking
3) Make some artwork of plants, animals and landscapes!
Put them up around the house!
4) Read an article or do an activity from EEK - Environmental Education for Kids
5) Watch a nature cam! (Our favorite's Fiona the hippo from Cincinnati Zoo - who does a Home Safari everyday at 2pm!)
6) Go for a nature walk around the block - with parent permission. Set up a "treasure shelf" at home to display cool looking rocks, pinecones, etc that you find!
7) Find out if your family has a telescope - set it up and star gaze before bed!
8) Have a family conversation that's environmentally minded. Maybe it's something you can do at home to be more Green - or something you learned about!
9) Make a comfy bird watching station! Pick a window where you can see some trees or bushes from and set up comfy pillows, some notebook paper and pencils. (Binoculars and bird guide optional) Draw any birds you happen to see!
10) Find out how to "green" up your house! Make signs to sort trash and recycling! Turn off lights you're not using!
11) Visit the Green Team's links page! Learn about some great environmentalists, read a cool article or play a fun game.
Here's even more great ideas from Earth Easy.
We hope you continue to stay green Central!
Some dates to know:
October 1st - October 16th - Green Team Applications accepted
October 16th - All Green Team Applications due!
October 22nd - First Team meeting! We hope to do this in-person outside so that we can maintain social distancing. (Weather permitting.)
October 29th - First Meeting rain date
Team 1 - Rage Against the Trash
Team 2 - Green Beans