Several times each year, the students at the University of Miami's Rosenteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science meet to clean up local beaches. For an elementary school project, you can perform a similar cleanup on a smaller scale. When choosing a location, choose a nearby area the students can walk to without busing and without crossing busy intersections. Give each student a pair of gloves and a bag to pick up trash. Explain the positive effects on the environment and use the project as a lesson in environmental science and ecology. Alternatively, you can involve parents and PTAs to connect the entire community.
To beautify the school and create a sense of community between children of different grade levels, create a collage painting that takes up an entire school hallway, with each student contributing a small amount to the total picture. To do this, separate the grade levels, so that each is responsible for a different part of the picture. The higher the grade, the more detailed the work. For example, if you decide to create an ocean-themed hallway collage, enlist the first graders to make fish, the second graders to make seashells, ships for third, clouds in the sky for fourth and various underwater creatures for fifth.
Create a schoolwide drama project, where the entire set and the costumes are made from recycled materials. For example, you can use paper egg cartons to make owl puppets or the class can put together plastic containers to create a cloud prop. To incorporate other grades, create a booster where before the show, each grade sells art pieces they made out of recycled materials.
Create an all-school science project to teach the kids about participating in ongoing science experimentation. Possible science projects include a greenhouse, where different grades grow different plants and test them in different ways or an educational website, created by the kids to teach each other about their own scientific findings.