(guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (playful music) - Hello, early learners!

And welcome back to the art room where we're finally celebrating Earth Day!

♪ Happy Earth Day to you ♪ ♪ Happy Earth Day to you ♪ Let's sing our good morning song and get started.

Ready?

♪ Oh, a duck says quack and a cow says moo ♪ ♪ And the old red rooster says cock-a-doodle-doo ♪ ♪ The sheep says baa and the cat says mew ♪ ♪ And I say good morning when I see you ♪ Good morning, boys and girls.

And the song I wanted to sing today was called "Pretty Planet" and it's by Tom Chapin.

And your parents might know Harry Chapin, who sang the song ♪ And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪ Well, his brother Tom is a current artist who sings a song about the Earth.

He has a "Happy Earth Day" song that I really like but the "Pretty Planet" one is one I used to teach to my children when I taught school in a classroom.

So it goes like this.

♪ This pretty planet spinning through space ♪ ♪ You're a garden, you're a harbor, you're a holy place ♪ ♪ Golden sun going down ♪ ♪ Gentle blue giant spin us around ♪ ♪ All through the night ♪ ♪ Safe till the morning light ♪ So it's about our pretty planet.

And how does it stay pretty?

By all of us taking care of it.

Talk to your families and talk to your teacher about things you might do to help keep the planet in its best, best state so that it stays clean water, clean air, clean earth.

Help the helper, that's what I think.

Mr. Rogers always said, "Look for the helpers.

When it looks like there's something wrong, always find a helper."

And I always looked to myself to be the helper.

So today, we're going to do a project much like we did with our pear when we were doing a collage.

And I brought the picture of the one I tried at home and it is just a square piece of paper, same way we drew around the outside of a round shape, and went from there.

So let me set mine down.

And what picture I brought today, which is very interesting, is a photograph from NASA.

That's our space, national space people.

And this is a photograph they took of our planet from outer space.

So here is our planet out in space with all the stars around it.

And the outside atmosphere is black because the sun is not shining on that enough to light it up.

But look at our Earth.

These green, brown places are the continents.

Here's North America and South America.

So they're in places that we can go this way.

So I thought we'd do green pieces here and here, and blue all around it, and black around the outside.

So let me pick up my table and my paper, and my little plate that I brought to work with.

Depends on the size of your paper of how big yours will be.

I started with small because it's kind of hard to get all of your magazine pieces to be stuck on there.

So, try and keep your pen away from something that you don't want to get ink on, and draw your circle in the center of your paper.

And I'm ready.

Put that away.

I'm gonna put the lid on my pen.

Hear it snap, and I'll get started.

I brought three bags.

When I was sitting in my living room and saying to myself, "Get your magazines out, get ready for the project."

And I wanted to see about the outline of the planet and what about the landforms.

So I brought this just so I can see where I might want to put my landforms.

So, here it is, kind of an earthy shape.

I'm gonna put some greens up there.

I'll use my glue stick, or remember this watered-down glue I told you, I just keep in this little jar?

Just keep opening up the jar, using it, and putting the lid back on.

Then I don't have to use my glue and keep adding and putting more on there.

But to start out, I'm going to put the lid here.

I'm gonna start out with my landmasses.

And they don't have to look exactly like these because it's kind of hard to tear paper and make it look like the continents.

So what I'm going to do is just start out by putting some, like on the edge of the globe.

I'll put this so you can see, and just glue them on there.

And I'm gonna overlap some.

Here are some green beans.

My magazine, I must've been using a food one.

I used a food one and used an old gardening one 'cause I thought, "Oh, that'll have a lot of green."

Oh, this could be New York.

Let's put that up there with Maine up at the top.

Get my North America on here.

Oh, this could be, go down here, oh, that's a good shape for that one.

Maybe I want to put a little Florida down there.

So I know that still is... Make it a little peninsula down there.

Ooh, stay here, glue.

There's a little skinny part that connects this to that.

So I'm going to do a little skinny part.

It's kind of bumpy.

I don't know all the places that I'm gluing on here.

I wish I really knew my geography better so I could say, "Oh, and this is this country, and this is this part."

And you'd say, "Oh, man, Ms. Readwright really knows her landmasses."

Oh, this one looks almost like that shape.

I think I'll do this one.

You will see this is just kind of art that you don't really have to think very much about.

So if you're kind of tired and you think, "What do I feel like doing?"

You say, "I know.

I will just do a little collage of landmasses and just put them on here so that I can then get started."

Oh, that's gonna go over off the edge of this.

I have to make sure that my Earth is still round.

So I'm going to tear a little piece of that off.

Let's see how that goes.

That's pretty good.

Now, a lot of this is water.

The Earth is.

So I'm gonna get a lot of water out.

And look at all the different colors of water I got.

I got some dark blue, some light blue, some medium blue.

And I think what I'll do right now is paint on some of this glue because then I won't keep sticking my fingers together to the pieces.

And I used my big wash brush, you know, not my paint brush.

This washing brush does a wash of color.

And when you want to make a lot of watery places, like if you're painting a sky, this wash brush is pretty good.

So I'm going to just do one top part of it and get some of my ocean in here.

'Cause this, the oceans and seas are going to be on this.

Gonna move it over off of my table a little bit.

And I think I'll put... Oh, there's some words on here, but it doesn't really matter.

I'm gonna cut it in a little piece that goes off to the side.

Stay up close to the edge, as close as I can.

I'm gonna use some of this lighter blue down here.

Oh, there's even some clouds in it.

'Cause you'll see in the NASA picture, if you ever look online, you can find that very same NASA picture that I found online and you can look and see they have some clouds that are over the Earth, and making it stick up there.

And you can see, oh, there's air and clouds.

And the atmosphere is showing.

I'll tear some more.

Some of you might like cutting yours.

I like to tear it because I think it overlaps better if it's torn.

Oh, here's some more clouds, I'm gonna use those.

I think that was an ad for some medicine in my magazine.

Bring the glue stick back down here.

I don't get too much.

I do like to wipe my brush off and I can go over the top of it and it kind of helps glue it down so it doesn't keep popping up.

Like, you'll see on my pear picture, I had to glue over the top and it made it kind of shiny and fancy, which I always like.

Oh, this is kind of a blue and a green mixed together.

I'm seeing, as I look in my magazine, colors that I have blended together using my watercolors.

It's kind of nice to, as you're doing artwork and using someone else's colors, that you think, "Hey, I made that with my watercolors.

I just added a little blue and a little green and maybe some white."

And you think, "I am doing colors that are used in a magazine."

It's like, we're helping the magazine people know about color.

Put that went over there.

Oh, there's still a little tiny place where I need a little bit of blue.

But I think I'll use this aqua.

Put that one there next to the landmass.

'Cause it goes around.

This isn't just a flat circle.

Our planet is a sphere.

And you know the difference 'cause we've talked about shapes before.

And when we talk about shapes, shapes are flat.

And form has curves and it's three dimensional.

Oh, I really like how my ocean's turning out.

Put a little glue and put this little piece, squish it in there next to that landmass, make it part of an ocean, glue it down.

Add a little more glue while I find another color I want to use.

I wonder if yours is looking like mine, a combination of blues, or are you using all your blues next to the one that you've already done?

I'm gonna start on my outline so that you can see where I'm going to put the space color.

So outer space is all black as night out there.

So I'm putting, just in that corner, I'm putting enough glue that I'll reach into my bag of black and gray and put that on there.

Oh, this is someone's hair from the magazine.

I'll cut her face off of there.

I don't want her face on it.

Up next to it.

Get in here and get some more.

I think I'll pull it out so I can just grab pieces rather than reaching in.

If I make this turn on a dime, it will turn, and I won't have to tear so much of it.

Boys and girls, I hope that when you talk about Earth Day with your family maybe at dinner tonight, you'll talk about ways that your family might, when you go to the park, if you have on gloves that you can pick up trash before you have your picnic and take care of what people that don't know about caring for the Earth, how they just are not as careful as you are, and you can take care of our planet.

And tomorrow, when our giant art project that we've been working on together, we're going to be adding the outer space like I'm doing now.

So, what we'll do is take a look at all the things that are out in space.

I might put a sun on mine, some stars.

So, let me get... Oh, this is like the cover of the magazine.

It's hard to bend.

I'll finish this and bring it back and show it to you, boys and girls.

But I think it's off to a really good start with my landmasses.

And it doesn't really matter if you put it one way or the other.

It can be any way you want it to be.

Because the Earth is spinning on its axis and it's making sure that it is getting itself around the sun.

So we have day and night.

All right, boys and girls, I'm going to set this down without spilling my glue and say goodbye to you.

♪ Oh, it's time ♪ (hands tapping) ♪ To say goodbye to all my friends ♪ ♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all my friends ♪ ♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye ♪ ♪ Give a wink and smile ♪ No.

♪ Give a smile and wink your eye ♪ ♪ Oh, it's time to say goodbye to all my friends ♪ Tomorrow, when we do our outer space, it's going to be an old friend you'll remember, Kandinsky.

Do you remember Kandinsky?

He did all the curved lines when we were learning about the elements of art?

We're doing Kandinsky's "Several Circles" because I thought they looked like planets.

And I think that you're going to like it pretty much.

Boys and girls, thanks for joining me today, for doing our Earth Day project, and for listening in and thinking.

All right, I'll see you tomorrow, bye-bye.

(guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪