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St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal School
7136 Winnetka Avenue
Winnetka, CA  91306
Phone: (818) 340-5144   Fax: (818) 340-5882
E-mail: stmartinsschool@aol.com

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Earth Day
Grades 3-5

Earth Day, which began on April 22, 1970, was the dream of one man - Gaylord Nelson. Take a minute to read the history of Earth Day.

Since Earth Day is this month, we are going to take 2-3 classes to reflect on the Earth and our environment. After you watch a video of The Lorax, you will be writing a poem in the style of If I Were in Charge of the World by Judith Viorst.

Create Your Poem
(See a sample poem)

Read Judith Viorst's poem, If I Were in Charge of the World. Pay attention to the number of stanzas and structure of the poem - you will be using this structure for your poem. To help remember the structure of the poem, you can copy and paste it into your Word document and then replace each line with one of your own.

  1. Write your own If I Were in Charge of the World poem in Microsoft Word.
    • Include the name of your poem and your name at the top of your poem.
    • The theme of Judith Viorst's poem is about things she would change if she were in charge. Her list of things tends to be very personal and sometimes funny. Your theme should be the things you would change or not change to protect the earth and the environment if you were in charge. 
    • You can write this about the world of The Lorax or about the current world that we live in. If you need help remembering what happened during The Lorax or need to know how to spell something that happened, there is a copy of this book in the class that you can look at or you can see the text here.
    • If you are really having a hard time, you can try the Write an Instant I'm In Charge of the World Poem tool. This doesn't create a poem with the exact structure of Judith Viorst's poem but it's very similar and acceptable for this project. If you use this tool, you will need to copy and paste your poem into Word and then continue with step 2.
  2. Illustrate your poem. You can get some clip art pictures at LucyLearns.com or create your own images of Truffula Trees, The Lorax, Bar-ba-loots, or pictures of our current world using Paint or PhotoFiltre or KidPix. Any pictures you use should not just be centered in document but should have the text of the poem wrapping around the picture or set off to the right or left of the picture. Check out the sample poem for some examples. To wrap the text around your picture:
    • Click on your picture to select it.
    • Select Format > Picture > Layout Tab
    • Select the appropriate option: to place your photo to the right of your text, select Tight and Right and to place it to the left of your text, select Tight and Left
  3. Save your poem. Please name this as Your Name - Earth Day when you save it.

Once your poem is complete, you may visit some of the Earth Day Fun sites.

Earth Day Fun

Do not go to the fun sites until you have completed your assigned work!

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St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal School
7136 Winnetka Avenue
Winnetka, CA  91306
Phone: (818) 340-5144   Fax: (818) 340-5882
E-mail: stmartinsschool@aol.com

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