Red Ribbon Week Activities

Here is a new website on a new science curriculum that deals with drug effects on kids. It is called "Brain Power."

We do a lot of activities for Red Ribbon Week. One year we released balloons with drug free messages inside and our address. We are in Missouri and heard from people in Indiana soon after. Then in the Spring we heard from someone around Chicago that had just found the balloon in a field. That was fun.
We have done a Hands Off Drugs board that hangs outside our elementary school. It is a big piece of particle board painted white. Third grade students printed their hand prints and name on it to pledge hands off drugs.
We usually pass out Halloween bags with a drug free message on them, Red Ribbon booklets, and stickers every day. We announce it at our football game that week and have a little ditty in the football program. Sometimes we have speakers come to the older students to bring them a drug free message. We have designed posters to display around the community. We also tie red ribbons around trees and phone poles for the week as a visual reminder. Hope these help.

I use to be a student council advisor at a middle school and we coodinated activities for each day of the week.

Each day was a dress up day, wear your shirt backwards to "turn your back on drugs". Wear Red/Black. Wear hats to "put a cap on drugs". Wear sunglasses to "shade out drugs". It was a contest between homerooms. Wear boots to "stomp out drugs". We bought red ribbon prizes from a magazine, but I can't recall the name right now. Oriental trading has some red ribbon items.

We had a balloon launch one day using red ballons. The kids signed a pledge card and released them at lunch.

We put signs on the doors that said, "close the door on drugs" and signs on the trashcans that say, "drugs are trash".

We held an assembly with a guest speaker (a police officer or someone in the community).

That is all I can remember right now. We decorated doors and rooms, but I can't think of what we did, right now.

We have done LOTS of things in the past. One of the neater things we did was: We took a piece of plywood and painted it white. Then we went to the third grade class and had them put their handprints on it using different colors of acrylic paint. The message was "We Pledge to be HANDS OFF Drugs". It hangs outside our elementary building for all to see as they enter. It is impactful. Our elem. is K-3. We always pass out a Red Ribbon Week sticker each day. Our counselor talks with each class about the purpose of Red Ribbon Week and then we let balloons go with our address in them with a drug free message and our address. We have gotten back messages as far away as Ohio.(we are in Missouri) We also tie ribbons around trees and light poles all over town for the week. Just some ideas.

Here is an idea I had for you. If you are suppose to cover the whole door then you may have to adjust this to the rules of the contest.
Take red construction paper (if you can get red newsprint paper it would be easier)peice it together as one big ribbon the size of your door. Then decorate the empty space around it with little red ribbons. On the big red ribbon have the students write facts, draw pictures, and hang up pamphlets.

We also do a lot of special activities during Red Ribbon Week. One of the neat things we do is have some high school role models that the kids see on the football field, academic bowl teams, cheering, etc. and have them come talk with the class with a drug free message and each student eats lunch with one particular class. Then after lunch they have an autograph signing time where the high school student signs autographs for the kids. Both really get into it and you can bet if the little kids didn't know that high schooler before they do now! Plus it gives some positive reinforcement for the student that has a good moral code.
We also write books for the lower elementary classes explaining what we have learned about drugs in ways that they can understand.

Our school is celebrating Red Ribbon Week next week. Here are a few of our activities. Monday we will wear red to kick off the week. Tuesdays theme is "Take a Stand for a Drug-free Land and we will wear red, white and blue. Wednesday is "Being Drug Free is No Sweat and we will wear sweats to school. Thursday is "Band together against drugs" and students will be allowed to wear bandannas to school. Friday is "I don't see drugs in my future" and students can wear sunglasses. high school students are assembling paper chains, doing tattoos, etc. Hope these are some doable ideas for you.

At our school we have a coloring contest for the prek - 1 students, poster contest for 2-3 and an essay contest for 4-5. The PTA usually provides either money for the winners or a prize. The winning essay is read at the next PTA. All students who enter receives a certificate and participation ribbon. We give prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3td place winners. The poster and essays are displayed all around the school.

Since Red Ribbon week is during fall, I did a BB that said "Don't Fall for drugs" with the words FALL falling down. Then, I took fall colored leaf cutouts and took a picture of each child and pasted it on the leaf. On the leaf, I had the phrase "I will not fall for drugs" and I had each child sign it. It looked really cute! Hope this helps!!

Here's a surefire winner -- I know, I've used it at 2 different schools and we won pizza parties at both schools!

I taught Kindergarten and my kids still loved Blue's Clues. So, for RR week, I made a "Blue" out of blue posterboard, glued on huge googly eyes, and colored his spots dark blue. THe title of the door was "We Can Be Anything We Want to Be -- We're drug-free!" (A play on the "We can do anything that you wanna do" phrase from the show. ) Since we were also studying community helpers at the time, it also tied into that theme as well. Anyway, the kids drew pictures of what they wanted to be when they grew up. I had movie stars, rock singers, a preacher, and soldiers. But the best one -- the one that I think sealed the win the last time -- was a little boy who wanted to be a pumpkin seller. NOt a farmer, but a pumpkin seller! It was too cute!

Hope this helps.
Tammy

We had a banner contest at our school. These could be easily adapted to a door decoration:
1."Stomp Out Drugs"-either trace around shoes and decorate inside or make a print of shoes with paint. 2. "Who chooses to be drug free? Can you pick the "right" door?" This was clever, I thought. There were two doors, one on the left and the other on the right. The door on the left didn't open. The door on the right opened and there was a mirror inside with the word "ME". 3."Thumbs Down to Drugs" or "Thumbs Up For a Drug Free Life"-using an ink pad, put thumbprints. These were a few of my favorites.

Since it is Halloween, I Wrote this chant to be echoed...Kids in Halloween costumes...
Drugs are SPOOKY!(ECHO after each line)
They"re not cool!
Let's be a drug-free school
They're no treat, they're a trick!
Drugs can make you awfully sick.
I don't want to be a witch,
Please listen to my pitch
Because I think that you're the most,
Hear our friendly ghosts:
Say Boo to Drugs!
Say Boo to Drugs!
Say Boo to Drugs!

We won 3rd place.A few years later we acted out Ringo Starr's No No Song and captured 1st place.

We decorated doors at our school last week. Here are some examples of what teacher's did:

"Doing drugs will haunt you for life" slogan with a haunted house and ghosts...write "say no to drugs" on the ghosts

"Be a hero, not a zero" with student drawings of their heroes

"Don't close the door to your future...say no to drugs" with doors all over the door!

That's all I can remember for now...I'll return of I think of more...good luck!

We have a red ribbon parade. Each class makes a banner, flags, pom poms, etc. We line up and march around the car rider circle. Each child wears a red shirt and a red ribbon. The parents can come and watch and wave to the kids. It seemed meaningful for my first graders but I also like the other things mentioned and may bring them up to our counselors. :)

Bethany,

Hi! Hope things are going great for you this year!

O.K.....here's what I've seen at other schools in the parish...one of them did a concert during Red ribbon Week. One of them had fun acitivities planned, (line dancing during lunch/recess, raffle, caught ya being good, and I can't remember the other two.)

One of them had an inspirational speaker.

Essay contest...

One year I did a song writing contest with my classes.

Also...poster contest...

And...of course the students either wore the bracelets, or ribbons to school each day.

you could do a silly sock day, a silly hair day, a cap day...

Just some thoughts...

REB:s)

We have a large vinyl banner our school bought at a screen print shop a few years ago. PTG paid for it. I'm guessing it was $100. Anyway it says (our school name) pledges to be drug free! We had a little pep assembly about choosing to be drug free w/ our neighborhood congressman and then he signed the banner. As lunch that day, the students all had an opportunity to sign the banner with overhead markers so that the following year, we could erase all the names and reuse. For several years, PTG has paid for a self-esteem/drug-free entertainer/speaker to come for an assembly during R.R. week as well.

Hi!

I've seen "The students in room ___ pledge to keep all hands off drugs" and handprints of each child with their name.

I've also seen doors that tie red ribbon in with Halloween, since it is the same month. You might try "We won't get caught in the web of drugs" with a spider web. Or maybe "Drugs make you more sick than a skeleton" with a giant skeleton. What about "if you do drugs, you will end up here" with a graveyard scene?

I'm sure other people will have better ideas. Good luck.

This may be too late but here are some ideas that are in my hallway right now:
My door is "Don't get wrapped up in drugs" the class painted tongue depressors green and added wiggle eyes and wrapped them up in yarn. They all made speech bubbles about saying no to drugs.
Another teacher made a "broncopoly" game board and the class made the spaces on the gameboard with warnings about drugs and the title was: Don't Play Games with Drugs
Good Luck
Dianne

...we used the phrase "Room 16 says Stay Clean! Don't do drugs!" Then we decorated with a large bathtub, a bathmat below it with a pair of slippers on it, and bubbles coming up out of the tub. On each bubble was a picture of my students. It came out cute and we won!

This year, I've written a paragraph using product labels. ( I pledge to make a healthy choice and stay away from drugs. Etc.) The paragraph will be posted on my door, surrounded by red ribbons with each student's picture on it. We'll see what happens. I don't expect to win this year. It's gotten pretty competitive and I think it's rather silly. I just like to have fun with it.

kids decorate grocery sacks and placemats for our grocery stores and restaurants -both items are furnished by the stores. Kids draw pictures and write drug free slogans and sign their names. Great advertising for the restaurants cause families go in to see if their child's will happen to be on their table - no guarantees though.

My students and I have been reading the poem "Star Light, Star Bright". We talked about what a wish is. Then, I had the students cut out stars and write their name on the star. On the other side, I wrote down what their wish is. I am going to cover my door with dark blue paper, hang their stars, and put the slogan "Drugs Destroy Wishes."

If you Google Red Ribbon Week you'll also find lots of ideas.

I yahoo'ed "coloring pages" and looked for jungle animals for my students to cut out and color. While they did that, I put red paper on my door and made a tree. I taped the animals all over the door. The slogan was "We're Wild about being Drug-Free!"
Someone judging the door said that we would have won, but they disqualified any door that didn't have a red ribbon on it. Everyone thought that our door was cute. Because so many doors were disqualified, we haven't had another door decorating contest.

We made pennants to hang outside our room. They put messages about drugs on them. Friday the whole school is going out on the playground for an activity. Each student in the room took a strip of red paper to make a single chain link. Then we linked the chains together for the classroom. All the other classes are doing this too. Then we will link all our class chains together out on the playground with the kids making a huge circle. "Chain up Drugs is our motto for the event. The newspaper is coming to take a picture. Oh, each student put their name on their link beore we stapled them together. You could do this just with your class making each child do a couple of links depending on the size of the class. Hope this helps. Good luck!Oh make sure you staple the links together instead of gluing them and if you go outside make sure you have an extra link to chain the others together and bring your stapler.