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Message in a Bottle

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 My bilingual 5th-graders were reading about wild animals and how their habitats are affected by humans. To wrap up the unit, I had them write a message to animals 100 years in the future. In their messages, they asked questions about what the world was like for the animals and if they were doing okay. Some students apologized for what humans had done to the planet while others drew the animals they were imagining. It was interesting to see how creative they got with their messages to the future. When they were done. they tied up their messages and glued them to paper bottles they had drawn and cut out as if we were going to throw these "bottles" in the ocean for animals to find in the future, find and read 😏 

I then took these messages to another older group of students I had. I asked this group of older teens to imagine they were the animals receiving the messages 100 years in the future and for them to answer the messages. My 5th-graders were so excited to receive their bottles back with the answers. They were also very curious to know more about the students who had answered their letters. It was great to be able to see them use English spontaneously and to be so willing to do this activity even though we were almost at the end of the year and feeling tired. And, the best part was that they asked to do more activities like this one. 💓

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