Edumacating little children

My project was to educate little children about ways to live sustainably, without polluting and degrading the earth. I joined an organization that does just that. I was assigned to a classroom where I would meet the coordinator and form there she would show me what to do and what to say. Ok so, as we all know, little children are so cute and adorable...but like every other things in life, they come with a flaw. I keep forgetting how a mindset of a 10 year old is, so I assume they know what I'm talking about when I say sustainability. Unfortunately they don’t, so I have to dumb things down enough so they understand me but not too low so they don’t get bored or insulted (I wonder if that’s a big word too).
Day 1 was pretty lame. I thought I would do swell, since I took a class called creative dramatics. This class is for my theater minor, but it also prepares us to teach an elementary class a certain subject, like math or science, using theater tools, like characterization or movement. I was required to come up lessons that would take up 40 minutes of class time, while teaching them in a fun way, not with lectures. For my ice breaker, I asked the class to split into groups of two and decide who will be ones and who will be twos. The ones would look at the board while the twos put their heads down. I would write “birds of a feather flock together” on the board and told them to remember it. Then I made them switch and the twos would look at the board this time while the phase “opposites attract” was written. Once they remembered their phrase, I asked the kids to discuss with their partners what their phrases were and why they had different ones. Obviously the two are contradictory, yet the children didn’t know what the first phrase meant. When I asked them to give me an example of a situation where each phrase might occur, everyone was quiet except for one girl who brought up magnets (future A student). She said it was an example of the 1st phrase, which was wrong but at least she was thinking.
Next we went to our next activity which is supposed to teach about our rivers and how polluted they are. We had a bowl of clean water and several plates of items representing different kinds of trash. We asked for a volunteer to come and dump a plate of coffee representing dirt. Then we asked another volunteer to come up and dump the plate with shredded paper representing paper. This continued with the plate of shredded plastic representing plastic thrown away, a cup of pink paint representing soap, a cup of white paint representing chemicals, a cup with silver paint representing aluminum, steel and metal and last but not least, grass representing trees and wildlife. When mixed, the water looked so nasty and dirty. We asked if anyone wanted to go for a swim in that filthy water and everyone said no, everyone except for one class clown (typical little children). Throughout the procedure we constantly asked them questions about how to recycle, reduce or reuse products they don’t need. Candy was rewarded for their responses, regardless if they were right or wrong. This was a saver because if not for candy, the students would never bother answering us or volunteer to go up. I felt like we were giving them too much candy, though, because one student had 5 pieces already.
Jus t when hope was fading from me, the long 45 minutes were finally up and the class had to go. I managed to survive this one, yet a feeling inside me felt accomplished that we taught those kids useful things that they will use one day. I felt like doing it again with different children. This project is turning out to be more enjoyable 