Reuse! Reuse! Reuse!

This term we have been trying to reduce, reuse and recycle. We wanted to reuse an old glass jar to make something new and useful. 

We decided to make a Christmas lantern as a gift to our families. 

We are caring for the environment and reusing a glass jar to make something that is beautiful!

Here is how we did it: 

Take one old glass jar.

Decorate it with tissue paper in Christmas colours.

Tie a ribbon around the rim.

Place a tealight candle inside.

Decorate with small shiny gems and you have ...... one beautiful Christmas lantern!

Reuse! Reuse! Reuse! - slideshows

Our Promises to care for the Environment

This term we have been learning about how we can care for the environment. To finish our unit we have thought about a personal action we can take to help reduce waste going to landfill, to reuse items and to recycle all the materials we can.

Our hope is that our families, friends and school community will support us and work with us to carry out our promises.

This term we have learnt that small actions can make a BIG difference to our environment.

Hint - you can press pause on the slideshow to read each promise.

Our Promises for the Environment on PhotoPeach

What is your promise to the environment? 

Our Rainbow!

We have created our wonderful rainbow made from lots of materials that would have gone to landfill. You can read about our action here. We are trying hard to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill and have created a beautiful piece of art.

Our Rainbow - slideshow

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

The Preps had a fabulous excursion to The Gould League in Moorabbin (thanks Mrs Coffa!) to learn about how we can reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill by reusing and recycling. 

The Gould League was an amazing place - it even had its very own shrinking machine allowing the Preps to explore the inside of a compost bin. So many hands on activities - the Preps were totally engaged all day. 

A big thank you to Mrs. Reszka, Mrs. David, Sonya, Suzi and Emma for helping to make this day fantastic and for taking such great photos to share. 

Also thank you to Kirsten from the Gould League who ran the day and was amazing! 

We learnt:

- if you drop rubbish on the road it will go down the holes on the side of the road and into the ocean. Gracie

- if you put your recycling in a bag they (the Recycling team) can't open the bag. Alexa

- you need to put the rubbish in the right bin. Joshua

- if you put the wrong rubbish in the wrong bin they can't recycle anything. Chantelle 

- that rubbish need to go in the right bin because it will hurt the environment. Stephanie

- that butchie boys come in all different sizes. Niamh

- that worms can be so helpful because they help the environment. Campbell

- that bottles go in the blue bin and plastic bags go in the red bin. James

- that you can't put oranges and lemons in the worm farm. Eva

- that you can put newspaper into the worm farm. Caitlin

The Gould League on PhotoPeach



- that orange peels don't go in the worm farm. Hamish

- that oranges go in the rubbish bin. Patrick

- that you have to put the right rubbish in the right bin. Elva

- that you put the right rubbish in the right bin. Sophie

- when you put rubbish in a bag and tie it up the truck comes and takes it to the MRF and the people at the MRF are not allowed to open it. Simon

- about the sad compost bin. Declan

- we can't recycle diapers. Joel

- if you put the wrong rubbish into the wrong bin it can't be recycled. Riley

- if you put your rubbish in a plastic bag they can't open the bag. Rosie

- if you put oranges in the worm farm the worms will die. Frances

The Gould League on PhotoPeach

Our mission is to share all that we have learnt with our school and wider community. We are all responsible for looking after our environment.

What can you do to reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill?

Taking Action - Caring for the Environment!

Last year the 2012 Preps (with thanks to Mrs David) began an action to reduce the amount of plastic going into landfill. You can read about our action here and here. We have a bench seat that is made from all the plastic we collected.
This year we are continuing to encourage our school community to recycle their flexible plastic. 
On Friday RED came to collect our flexible plastic for the second time this term.
It is amazing that one community has stopped this amount of plastic going to landfill! 

Our flexible plastic collection

Thank you to all our families who recycle their flexible plastic and support our action to care for the environment.

How do you care for the environment?

Do you recycle?

An Exciting Day!

Last year Prep D and Prep K worked very hard to reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill. Mrs David contacted the RED group and we bought a bin to collect flexible plastic. You can read about RED here.

When we had collected enough plastic we had a special seat made using all our plastic. Today we were able to see our seat for the first time! We are very proud of our efforts and hope that our community will keep bringing their flexible plastic to school to put in the RED bin.

Prep K 2012 try out the new seat

Prep D 2012 also have a turn!

Our seat!
Thanks Mr Perkins for putting it together for us!

Prep 2013 also try out the new seat

Keep bringing your plastic to school!
Help us to reduce landfill.

What an amazing and easy way to reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill!

Reusing - Glass jars

As part of our inquiry this term we have been looking at how we can reuse materials to reduce the amount of rubbish that goes into landfill. All the Preps brought a glass jar to school and we decided to make a Christmas decoration using the jars. 
We found this great activity on a wonderful blog Handprint and Footprint ART and were able to turn a plain glass jar into a very special reindeer candy cane treat holder.

Reusing to make Rudolph! on PhotoPeach

How do you reuse glass jars?

How do you reuse materials?

Our Action - Can you help us?

A couple of weeks ago we did a litter audit around our local area. We discovered that there was quite a bit of rubbish in the street our school is on. So today we had a letter box drop to ask the people who live in the street if they could pick up any rubbish they see outside their houses. We are trying to care for the environment and would like to encourage everyone to help!

Here is the flyer we created together:

We hope that we can make a difference and that the people in our community will help us!

Litter Detectives strike again!

Prep Litter Detectives were out and about again this week!
On Monday we decided to check to see if there was any rubbish in our playground - Monday is our only Tuckshop day and we wanted to see what the playground looked like after lunch.
So we collected our maps and rubber gloves and set out on our rubbish audit.

We were very disappointed to see quite a lot of rubbish in our school! So we marked the areas on our maps and picked up all the rubbish we could see.

We think we need to talk to the whole school about the amount of litter we saw!

The Preps are very keen to make posters reminding everyone not to drop their rubbish.

We want to have more paper chases.

One Prep said we should be a wrapper free school everyday!

What do you think we should do about the rubbish around our school? 
How can we encourage other students to pick up their rubbish?