Symbols of Peace | Peace is a Sunset | Puppets for Peace | Peaceful Places in our School | Peace Cranes

Symbols of Peace

The students in Mrs. Bauer's Grade 4 class have been exploring the symbols of peace. The sunflower is an internationally recognized symbol of peace which represents the end of nuclear weapons. The children planted sunflowers and made wishes of peace for the earth. The students have created wire sculptures of a sunflower and inside of each sunflower, then chose another symbol of peace such as the kite, poppy, dove, or hand.

Peace is a Sunset

Click here to listen to "Peace Is a Sunset," a song by Grade 1 Room 17 (MP3)

Puppets for Peace Students at Olympic Heights School enjoyed Puppets for Peace presentations by The Project Ploughshares organization. These interactive puppet plays introduced “the ‘Footsteps to Peace” strategies and grade appropriate scenarios which explore what bullying means and how to handle it peacefully.

Peaceful Places in Our School
Grade 1 Room 17

The children talked about all the peaceful places there are around our school and how they felt when they went there. They thought it would be great to share these special spots. They broke up into groups and took pictures of places that they loved with the digital camera. Then they used a photo editor to turn the pictures into art. Here are some of their works of art.

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Peace Cranes

Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the bomb was dropped on her home city of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6. 1945.  Sadako seemed to escape any ill effects after her exposure to the bomb, until, ten years later, she developed leukemia “the atom bomb disease.”

While she was in the hospital, her friend Chizuko brought her a folded paper crane and told her the story about it. According to Japanese legend, the crane lives for a thousand years and a sick person who folds a thousand cranes will become well again.

Sadako folded cranes through her illness. The flock hung above her bed on strings. When she died at the age of twelve, Sadako had folded six hundred and forty-four (644) cranes.  Classmates folded the remaining three hundred and fifty-six (356) cranes so that one thousand were buried with Sadako.

In 1958, with contributions from school children, a statue was erected in Hiroshima Peace Park, dedicated to Sadako and to all children who were killed by the atom bomb.

Each year on August 6, Peace Day, thousand of paper cranes are placed beneath Sadako’s statue by people who wish to remember Hiroshima and express this hopes for a peaceful world.

Their prayer is engraved on the base of the statue:

This is our cry, this is our prayer; peace in the world.

“Paper crane, I will write peace on your wings and you will fly over the world.”
Sadako Sasaki, age 12

In memory of Sadako, Olympic Heights School has made peace cranes as our offer to promote peace in the world.     

We are a member of Peaceful School International.

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