Consumption and Waste Foundation Phase Activities

The following activities were part of an ‘Eco Week’ at a Cardiff Primary School

Consumption and waste – Foundation phase activities Learning Suggested Activities including Differentiation Assessment Resources Key Objectives Methodology Skills To begin to Engage Observation Oracy. understand how they  Watch a video of the Wombles or visit website. Discuss what the wombles do and why? Explore previous learning Discussion can protect the  Discuss what children think happens to their rubbish after they have put it in the bin. Questioning Vocab: environment and  Visit www.reallyrubbishcampaign.com/primary go to the lamby’s and take the tour of the become landfill and recycling centre. environmentally  Look at pictures of the landfill site and discuss how it makes them feel to see all the rubbish piled up. Link to previous lesson of what makes an ideal world. What can we do to friendly in their stop the rubbish mountain from growing too fast? Children explore their ideas in groups, everyday lives. (PSE) recording their ideas in pictures and writing.  Introduce the phrase – REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. Explore children’s understanding of To investigate what each word means, prior to carrying out the challenge linked to that word. sources and issues REDUCE Explore – Make a class list of children’s ideas about how they could make less waste eg only use (K&U). one paper towell to dry hands. Challenge – Children make a poster to go up in the classroom to remind them to use less waste. To make comparisons REUSE and identify Explore – Look at the contents of a rubbish bin and discuss which items could be re-used befre they are thrown away and how. similarities and Challenge differences.  Set up each table with some re-usable rubbish (cleaned). Children are given the challenge of making something useful out of the rubbish, just like the wombles, to save it going to To use and become waste.  familiar with common Look at what children have made and discuss. RECYCLE words and phrases Explore – Explore children’s understanding of what recycle means. Explore what children for their world. understand about what will rot quickly and can be used for compost. Use really rubbish campaign website to find out what can be recycled in the green bags and what can be composted. Challenge –Whole class sort rubbish into what can be recycled / composted / needs to be thrown away. Apply – Look at 2 different lunchboxes and discuss which makes the most / least waste and why? Reflect What have we learned? How have we learned it? How can we use what we have learned? Learning Objective Suggested Activities including Differentiation Assessment Resources Key Skills Methodology To begin to understand Engage Observation Oracy. how they can protect  Read ‘Oh what a beautiful Meadow’. Discussion Explore the environment and Questioning Vocab:  become environmentally Explore what they have learned already about looking after the world. friendly in their  Use the analogy of a footprint in the sand to discuss the everyday lives. (PSD) concept of a global footprint – who would make the biggest change to the sand, a giant or a child? Discuss how there is room To take responsibility for more people and animals and less damage to the sand if we for their own actions all have little footprints. We want to do as little damage to the (PSD) world around us as we can, like a child walking in the sand, not a giant. To communicate what is  Discuss how everybody has a footprint and so everybody has a good and bad, right and responsibility to try and look after the world.  wrong, fair and unfair, Make a class list of things that we do that make our global footprint bigger. Teacher to contribute some less obvious ideas caring and considerate. eg using too much energy and water, and attempt to explain (M&S) these so that children have some awareness. Challenge To see links between  In small groups children think of all the things they could do to cause and effect. (K&U) look after the environment better, and make their footprint smaller.  Each child then decides on 1 thing they are going to do, and make a promise to change. This promise may be recorded in various ways – writing, drawing, voice recording, digiblue. Apply  Discuss what can be done as a whole school and how each action will reduce the school’s global footprint. What else could be done? Reflect What have we learned? How have we learned it? How will it affect what we do now? Read / watch “The Lorax” by Dr Seuss.