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The Secret is Out. Spread the Word.

Almost 1 million people have signed our letters to President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S., the Prime Minister and Minister of Health in Japan. The more people who sign, the more impact we’ll have when we take the letters to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, and to the Minister of Health in Japan.

Please join and sign the petition HERE, and if you have friends or family in Japan please send them the Japanese language version.

In The Cove, a team of activists and filmmakers infiltrate a heavily-guarded cove in Taiji, Japan. In this remote village they witness and document activities deliberately being hidden from the public: More than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises are being slaughtered each year and their meat, containing toxic levels of mercury, is being sold as food in Japan, often times labeled as whale meat.

To really make an impact on this issue, we must get the word out in Japan and urge action from our own leaders. We believe that once the world and the Japanese people know, they will demand change. Help us save Japan's dolphins.

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There are a ton of lessons available for Mother's Day.

I had a bunch of left-over foam from my book project. I thought I'd use the foam to create Mother's Day cards with foam background and let the students create whatever they can with the foam and glue it on.

Integrated in was Language Arts, where I had them come up with an acrostic featuring the word MOTHER. Either with one word that signifies the letter relating to their mother or a short sentence. This lesson is very short and most of the students had enough time to create another card. Luckily I had a lot of foam!

What I did not account for...and this was something I overlooked but luckily my host-teacher saved me (sort of). When preparing these activities...a teacher has to be sensitive to the varying home situations of students. So note to self and to future novice teachers: Know your students backgrounds!

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Paper mache is a hugely messy ordeal.

I planned the lesson for 3 sessions of back to back to back (totaling 1 hour and 20 minutes) of art. This was not enough.

Upon reflection:
Paper mache should be done in consecutive days.
After day 1...the balloons usually show patchy areas.
So on day 2...the class should patch this up.
Also on day 2 - the balloon should be popped and air released.
We didn't do that so during the week the balloon pulled the paper mache and some of the balloons "imploded" (sunk in).

So we added 2 more classes and we finally got our globes done. Thank you grade 3's!

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Winners for the Every Day Heroes Film Competition have been announced, but they were up against some stiff competition. Check out the top 20 finalists.

Voting is open until April 25^th for the People’s Choice Award.
Watch the Every Day Heroes Film Competition entries online and vote for your favorite!


Making a Difference

Miranda Andersen, Writer, Producer, Director

This film is about Ruth Foster, a retired teacher, hatchery co-founder and local activist for all things environmental. She give a great deal of her time to preserving and protecting the wilderness. She should be the poster woman for earth day – she makes every day earth day!

Belcarra, British Columbia

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Engaging, educational and entertaining, the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children is an initiative of TIFF that offers children and youth the opportunity to learn about cultural perspectives from around the world through the power of the moving image.

An enriching experience that is much more than just a day at the movies, Sprockets includes a Public Programme for ages three and up and a week-long School Programme for students in grades 1 to 12. Featuring the best of Canadian and international cinema for children and youth, Sprockets offers a compelling selection of features and shorts on diverse subjects in a variety of genres and styles. It provides a rare opportunity to watch films that kids around the world are lining up to see and that in many cases may not be available again in Toronto.

In its first year the festival had an attendance of 2,300. It has since grown at a phenomenal pace, increasing its audience to over 13,000 in 2009. The tremendous success of the event led to the creation of the Sprockets Family Zone section at the Toronto International Film Festival, the year-round outreach programme Special Delivery and the Pocket Fund, a fund-raising initiative.

Contact 416-968-FILM 1-877-968-FILM for more information

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In preparation for the upcoming Earth Day celebration (April 22, 2010)...last week I started my class with a story called, "Sharon Finds the Environment" by Tom Hawkins

After reading the story I had a discussion with the class about the importance about being environmentally friendly. How we can do our part to keep Planet Earth/our Environment clean.

Our art activity for the afternoon was paper mache globes.
We had the entire afternoon to work on covering our balloons with 2-3 layers of paper.
It was fun and extremely messy!

We managed to finish our globes and they are nicely drying at the back of the classroom. This coming Thursday, we will create the stands for our globes, talk about the proportion of land to water and the placement of several continents.

Our aim is to have our paper mache globes finished to display for Earth Day!

Here is some photos I took while I was creating my sample globe for my class.

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