Lesson Plan on Recycling

This is a lesson plan that I created for early learners about recycling. Recycling is part of learning about student health and wellness. This lesson is a Project-Based Lesson because after instruction the students are asked to create recycling boxes they can take home to encourage them and their families to recycle. This lesson plan caters to every type of learner and is filled with differentiated teaching methods. For auditory, visual and even ELL students there is a visual presentation given to the students which includes a video about recycling. At the beginning of the lesson kinesthetic learners benefit by the campus walk about where we identify waste and recyclables and where each are disposed. Final assessment of knowledge will be done by the informal method of having the students share what they have learned about recycling with the class. One idea to assess would be to give each student a recyclable item and have them place it in the appropriate recycling type bin that matches their item. After this lesson each student should be able to identify the main types of recyclables such as plastic, aluminum, and paper products. We could play a sorting game with the objects as a class to reinforce their understanding of recyclables. This is a fun and interactive lesson for every type of learner.

Lesson Plan with

 “Totally Awesome Teaching Strategies”

Items from (Meeks, L, Heit, P, and Page, R. 2011:405-407), except for *

Fun, Catchy Title: A Delightful Way to Recycle
Content Area (one of the titles/topics of Chapters 5-14): Recycling
Grade Level: Kindergarten
Health Goal (found in chapters 5-14 and Scope and Sequence. Chart): ·       I will recycle all of my plastic, glass, and aluminum trash.
National Health Education Standard (from chapter 3)OR California Health Education Standards (at websites)  or both: Health Education Standard 8: Students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health. Students will take lessons learned and be health-literate individuals able to identify recyclable items and dispose of them positive health advocates within their home and their community. Although these students are young starting these healthy habits early is important in maintain their environmental health wellness as they grow.
Performance Indicators (see Scope and Sequence Chart and Chapter 3): Students will be able to: ·       Identify the main types of recyclable materials. (aluminum, glass, and paper) ·       Identify public recycling bins. ·       Understand why it’s important to recycle.
Assessment/Evaluation: Mastery- how will you know they know it?	Performance indicators *The student will properly identify at least one of the main recyclable items taught within the lesson plan. *After a month of home recycling the students will bring in their recycled items in exchange for a class party. By observing what’s inside each bag I can see if the child and their families know what recyclable items are. Students will be asked again to identify what type of recycled items are in their bags. Life skills *Being young environmental health advocates for our planet. *Encouraging at home recycling plans. *Using public recycling appropriately.
Infusion/Subject Integration: Area of curriculum: How will you address 4C’s Collaboration Communication Critical Thinking Creativity	Rationale ·       Collaboration To get the students to work together I will take them on a litter walk around the school campus. If a student finds a piece of trash, I will ask them as a group if it is trash or a recyclable. At this age group working together is a natural way of learning. Another way I can get the students to work together is to create an idea board for their recycling box design. Using the white board, I will ask students to think about different things we can paint onto our boxes. Working together we can come up with several ideas of beautiful things about our planet we want to keep healthy and protect. ·       Communication When a student has a feeling or idea they want to share with the class I will briefly stop the activity and ask that they listen to their colleague. ·       Critical Thinking Students will be asked to think about what happens to something like a water bottle if it’s left on the ground? Ask students where a good place to put their new recycling bins would be? ·       Creativity Students will be given creative freedom while painting their own home recycling boxes. They can paint anything that makes them feel good about making the earth a better place.
Health Literacy: Critical thinking Problem solving Responsible citizenship Self-directed learning Effective communication	Action and rationale During our outdoor adventure students will be asked a few open ended questions which will lead to open critical thinking and problem solving discussions. Do you ever see trash on the ground? After asking this question I can follow by having them try to find any trash around them as we walk the campus. Does anyone know what recycling is? What types of things can we recycle? If we see trash on the ground should we leave it there? We didn’t put it there! Teaching the students that we are all responsible for keeping our earth clean instills a sense of being a responsible citizen for the environment around them. This lesson plan is self-directed because students are leading the discussion along the way and learning as they go. Depending on what we find outside the students will either throw away waste or find out where and what they can recycle. This lesson is being presented in several different modalities so that every student will come away with increased knowledge about recycling. Students will be given the definition of what recycling is, shown outside places they might find recyclables and where they can put them, and by creating their own unique recycling bin for their homes.
Materials:	Action and rationale ·        Medium cardboard box from home ·        Paint ·        Paint brushes ·        Table covers ·        Art aprons for each student
Motivation: Background knowledge: : Teaching - Step by step instructions : What students are doing	Action and rationale 1.       If possible, get students outside so that they can actively observe nature and the world around them. Talk to them about why it’s important to keep our planet clean. Introduce the concept of recycling and ask the students if they know what recycling is. Walk the students around campus to see if they can find and pick up any litter and identify it as something they can recycle. Show the students what a public recycling bin looks like and where and how we can identify them when we are in a public place. 2.       Once we return to the classroom this is a great time to go over the main types of recyclable items. I will have a power point slide of images of these items such as soda cans and water bottles. I will also include a brief video of where recycled items go. I will also verbally tell the students how long these types of items take to get rid of if they are not recycled. 3.       Have students collaborate and tell me beautiful things they love about the earth. I will draw simple images of things they tell me on the board. Students will then use these images and ideas to paint the outside of their own boxes. These boxes, once dry, will be taken home so students can practice recycling in their own homes. While the students are painting open discussion will be encouraged and guided as to what items we can put in our boxes to recycle and what we shouldn’t place in our recycling boxes. 4.       Students will be able to take home their completed recycling containers the next day. Once dry I will use a sealant on each box to prevent water damage to the boxes. (This will be done after students are gone for the day) To encourage them to use their new recycling bins at home I will let them know that at the end of the month if they bring back a full bag of recycled items we will have a class party to celebrate them being amazing environmental leaders. 5.       Once students return with their recycled items I will do a quick examination of what’s in their bags and pull out different items and have the class identify it as a plastic, aluminum, or glass. 6.       Remind students that keeping our earth clean is important and that each of us our responsible for keeping it that way. By recycling we are helping to keep our planet a beautiful and healthy place for us to live.
Multicultural Infusion: Adaptation for cultural diversity Differentiation for ELL	Action and rationale As I will be teaching in San Diego California I plan on always finding new ways to infuse parts of the Hispanic culture and language into my curriculum. For this lesson I would incorporate part of the Spanish language into the art. At the top of the white board I will write and teach the students the following phrase “Reciclables no son basura!”. Translated this means “Recyclables no trash!” The students may choose to paint this phrase onto their boxes they will bring home. This will help my ELL students and their families at home understand what their boxes are for.
Inclusion -Differentiation for  special learning challenges Gifted Learning Challenged	Action and rationale Inclusion helps promote health literacy because it gives the students an opportunity to increase communication, socialization and the ability to work together. During this activity I would want to make sure that if one of my students was disabled to make my school campus walk route wheel chair accessible. I would also want to make sure I had extra help if needed to be able to bring the student outside to enjoy the same teaching experience as all the other students. Students with learning disabilities will be given the same encouragement to voice their opinions and ask questions if they have them. This lesson plan allows for many open topics surrounding recycling and the environment and I as a teacher will make sure I teach them all they want to know about the subject matter and more.
Technology: AVK ( audio, visual, kinesthetic): Use of technology Websites	Action and rationale A small power point slide show will be used to show the students the main types of recycling materials. Visually showing them the types of recyclable materials is a great modality to insure their understanding of the material. A few extra images of some cool ways to reuse items will also be shared with the class. I want them to know that sometimes trash isn’t always just trash. Sometimes something beautiful and useful can be made from the simplest things. Even from our own trash!   I will also find and utilize a brief video showing wear recyclables go and how they are reused. With this young age group, it’s important to stick to the basic concepts so it will need to be something short and simple for them to understand the importance of recycling. The one I found that has great content is by the Reading Rainbow called “How Trash is Recycled”. In this 6-minute video students will be shown what happens to all the plastic bottles, aluminum cans and paper they recycle. The video shows how the recyclables are sorted and reused.
Metacognition - *Conclusion/Debrief/ Reflection with students	Action and rationale Before beginning this evaluation, I want to review the main types of recyclable materials as plastic, aluminum and glass and the places we can use to recycle these items. Have the students tell me what they would do if they see an empty soda can on the ground? (They would pick it up and throw it in the recycling bin.) By picking up the can the student is keeping the earth clean and by recycling making the most of our resources. Ask the students how their recycling bins are working in their own homes. Are they able to identify and recycle more now that they have a place to do it? Let the students know that they possibly have encouraged even more people to recycle more by creating a place to recycle within their home. Now the student and their entire family is recycling because of the recycling bin they created!