Vicki Crockett's Kindergarten class at Nativity recently completed construction on a milk jug igloo. Vicki came across the idea while searching for new ideas for her winter unit. Big enough for four students to fit in at a time, taking only 100-125 jugs, she knew it would fit in the classroom and was a feasible project. Over Christmas vacation, Vicki began collecting empty milk jugs and other plastic gallon jugs from friends and family. When school started again in January, she asked her classroom families to start sending in jugs and began hot gluing them in pairs to a 15 foot by 15 foot piece of cardboard on the floor.
Once the project was started, the children became so excited that Vicki realized she needed to expand her igloo to fit not just 4 children at once but the whole class of 17 students. She had the entire class sit on cardboard and made a big circle around them. Needing a much greater amount of milk jugs, Vicki put in a request to the school newsletter and asked Father Corona to make a plea for help at Mass. Parishioners who attend daily Mass began dropping milk jugs off at the church, around 15-20 each day.
Each level took about 45 jugs and upon finishing, the igloo consisted of over 650 jugs.
Overall, the project took about a month to complete, working on the igloo for about 30-45 minutes each school day. The project has been a big hit with the students at the school, as well as adults visiting or working at the school and in the church. The kindergartners read and write in there, do puzzles and sit in there with the classroom guinea pigs S'Mores and Chocolate. The class will be dismantling the igloo before spring break at the end of March, putting the milk jugs out for recycling. 