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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
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Earth Day Fun
Do not go to the fun sites until
you have completed your assigned work!
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