Tag Archives: service-learning

Kindness Week 2019: Ms. Dale’s Kindness Sale

As I mentioned in my post about the Kindness Quilt 2.0, Robinson has begun doing a variety of fabulous and kind things throughout a whole WEEK instead of just focusing on Valentine’s Day.

One of the REALLY fabulous things that happened during Kindness Week was a Kindness Garage Sale held by Ms. Dale’s First Graders.  They have been working on a service-learning project related to poverty, food scarcity and helping our neighbors.  We have a Little Food Pantry on our school campus (and it’s shaped like George, our Roadrunner mascot!), but they had noticed that it is often in need of filling; many people in our community benefit from what is available inside.

Ms. Dale’s class put together a garage sale to raise money to take a shopping trip to Aldi to shop for food to fill up our pantry and invited all of our school to come shopping!  Everything was 50 cents, so everyone was able to get a little something.

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We were amazed that everyone in our class seemed to find a trinket that was seemingly made just for them.  Zach found dinosaurs, Brock found a Transformer, Ariya chose a little porcelain egg with a kitten on it, Avant found bouncy balls, Riley found a dog, Hailey found a book she LOVES from our classroom and now she has her very own copy!–even I got something and found a 1000 piece puzzle! Several kiddos discovered sunglasses and were THRILLED when two days later it was finally sunny. 🙂 . Beckett and Isaac both made a point to choose something for themselves, and also for their moms. ❤ . And I’m sorry–I didn’t get a picture of everyone.  They were too quick for me!

Besides the treasures that we were able to find for ourselves, the big benefit of the sale was the almost $400 that the class raised!  They were able to take their shopping field trip on Thursday of Kindness Week and stock up the pantry!  What an incredible way to spread kindness and love to our community!  Can’t wait to see what happens as they continue to support the neighbors who live around us.  We’re also hoping that maybe the rest of Robinson can join in and do some learning with them. 🙂 Stay tuned for more chapters to this story!

Pictures of the Day: May 20, 2015

Wednesday was a busy day at school. What were we busy doing? Hanging up all those posters I showed you yesterday:

It’s funny, I look at that picture now and all I can ask myself is “Why didn’t you move that silly recycle bin?” Hee hee

And then this happened while we were in the library after all of our poster hanging:  Cute, right? Used by a teacher on our Facebook page as our countdown for “5 days.” Love. 🙂

Pictures of the Day: May 19, 2015

I REALLY want to show you the WHOLE thing about this project, but instead I’ll just show you two pictures as a tease for a later story.  They’re the pictures of the day for today, but they’ve been in the works since last week at this time.  And you know, I think I’m just going to let you wonder.  To let the pictures speak for themselves and see what happens….:)

  

First Grade Blogs about Kindness

Did you know that sometimes at the end of the school year, kids FORGET that they’re supposed to be nice to each other and follow the rules at their school? That happened to us.  So, we sat down and made a chart of #nicethingstodoandsay to help us remember how to show that we care about each other.

Here’s a picture of what it looks like:

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We figured that if we could use this chart to help us, then you could, too!  So we decided to share it–with our Robinson friends, and even people outside of our school.  With kids AND with grown-ups!  Anyone can read it and use it to help them show someone they care about them.

We know we are going to use this list. What about you? How will YOU show that someone else matters? What #nicethingstodoandsay will you choose?  Leave us a comment, or tweet to us at @jbeardensclass to tell us how it’s working out for you!

Interactive Writing Explained

**Disclaimer–I am SO excited to share this post and have been thinking about the right way to write it for a LONG time!  My kiddos worked SO hard on the writing in this story and are rockstars in my book.  THANKS FOR READING!!**

If you have been here for a while then you know that this year is my first year in first grade in a LONG, LONG time!  I got my start there more than a decade ago, then moved on to work with “big” kids for a while and am back to my roots.  Much has changed, but I’m finding that many things have stayed the same–some things are just good teaching.  Best practice.  Good stuff for kids.  Interactive writing is one of those things.  I learned how to do it back then and am being reminded of it’s importance and power with kids today.  Let me explain. 🙂

First of all a definition: interactive writing is a writing experience (often whole group) where teacher and students “share the pen” to create meaningful text together.  The teacher, using what she knows about students and their current understandings about letters, sounds, words, etc., purposefully chooses kids to add certain parts to the composition, building on their knowledge and helping them make connections to new skills and concepts.  This is not done haphazardly, and is best done with planning ahead of time–although I have had some amazing experiences with IW that happens “on the fly.”  Ideally, the texts you compose together because touchstones for future learning; revising and revisiting are part of the process. Continue reading →

Stray Rescue Update #1–Sewing Class!

You already know we’re working on a project to benefit Stray Rescue.    I told you I’d update you as we got into it, but it took lots of time and we were so busy that I haven’t even had a second to tell you about it until now.  And boy is there alot to tell….but like I said in an earlier post, I’ll not tell you the whole story at once.

We decided that the best way to help Stray Rescue do what they do best was to do what we do best, and that’s be creative!  We had multiple conversations about how to do that, and we settled upon the fact that we should sew and bake.  Ok, maybe I added a little to that conversation, too, since I enjoy both of those things, but everyone agreed that it would be a good idea.

We did a little bit of research, and decided that we wanted to make chew toys for doggies that were shaped like bones.  We also thought that creating bandannas for our canine friends would be a good idea.  So the fabric, templates, scissors and sewing machines came out for the next several days and we got busy!  I taught everyone who didn’t already know about the basics of the sewing machine, and then each kiddo took a turn having-a-go.

I was SO excited when the first pupils in my sewing class were BOYS!  I know, that’s a little bit sexist to say that only girls would want to sew, but for some reason I was surprised.  Anyhow, they LOVED it, and I started hearing things like “I love this!” and “I have to get a sewing machine so I can do this at home” right after we started.  Here’s a little peek into our first “class”:

Tracing a “bone” onto some fabric to make the outside shape.  The bones were then stuffed with a plastic water bottle.  Somebody had the great idea that it would be a good way to recycle our bottles left over from MAP testing, and would make a great “crinkling” sound that doggies would love!  Double great. 🙂

Love how we got so many out of one shirt! All of our materials were donated by students in the class.

Archie and Harry sewing a straight line.  That was the first lesson. 🙂

Zarion totally rocked his first try at sewing, too!  He was adding a zig-zag stitch to the edge of our bandannas so they didn’t unravel.  These turned out great!


WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Hey, friends!  We need your help!

Remember when I posted the other day about Stray Rescue and we’re working with them for our service-learning project?  Well the project is just about to be in full-swing.  Why not yet?  Because like I said, we need your help!

We have decided to make and then sell dog toys and treats, because when Connie came from Stray Rescue, she mentioned several times that the thing they need the most is MONEY!  We threw around several ideas about how to help, and decided to merge our overall class craftiness with their need for money and are going to sell our handiwork to our Robinson friends.  So we’ll need your help with that (once Sale Day comes up on April 28), but right now we need your help to gather the materials we’ll need to make our toys.

So…if you know me, or a friend in our class, and have any of these items laying around your house and are willing to let us use them, please get to us ASAP.  We’re going to start creating on Tuesday or Wednesday–hey, I know it’s late notice, so if you can’t work that fast I get it, but we just decided the other day that this was our plan.  Ok, moving on…

Here’s what we need:

For toys–

  • tennis balls
  • rope
  • old jeans
  • fleece blankets (or other fleece material that you don’t mind us cutting up)
  • empty water bottles (16 oz. or so)–no need for lids
  • old socks (adult sizes would work best)

For treats–

  • flour
  • dry milk
  • peanut butter
  • honey
  • oatmeal
  • cookie cutters (dogs, paws, bones, etc)

We’re getting excited about all of this creativity that is about to spring forth in our room, and even more excited about how that will benefit our canine and human friends alike when we can give Stray Rescue our donation!  There are over 400 kiddos in our school, and there is a large population of dog owners (we collected data to find out how many there really were!), so we’ll need to make lots of toys.  The more you can donate the better!

If you can help and you are a parent or friend of a kiddo in our class, just send your goodies in with them to school.  If you are a friend of mine, feel free to contact me and I will figure out a way to get them from you! Add a comment on here or send me an email, Facebook message or Twitter DM.  THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR HELP!

 

Stray Rescue

What a day Friday was for us!  We were so busy with so many fun opportunities!  One of them was a visit from a representative from Stray Rescue of St. Louis.  I mentioned here about how one of the great things we’ll be doing this quarter is participating in a service-learning project related to helping animals in our community.  And last year, I explained in a little more detail all about the background of service-learning in our school, and a smaller project we’ve already been a part of (check it out here).

So the visit for Friday’s goal was for us to learn more about both Stray Rescue in general, but also how we can most effectively help them.

We were visited by a volunteer, Constance Davie, who came along with her friend Sheri.

  

She gave us so very useful information about the work that Stray Rescue does, and how they are different from other animal agencies in our area.  The biggest difference–they are a no-kill shelter.  She told us about how they have a newly built facility on Pine St. that can house around 150-200 dogs at a time!  That’s a lot of pooches to take care of!  Part of the great work that Constance does when she volunteers is walk and wash and play with all of those dogs every day.

Ms. Davie shared with us about all of the programs that Stray Rescue has, using a big display board she brought with her.

We learned a lot from this part of the presentation.  Ms. Davie told us about how it cost only $75 to get a pet from Stray Rescue, which is much less than any of the other places around town.  Then, through their Post Adoption Program, they will provide training for you and your dog, if they need help adjusting to your family, or if they need to learn better doggie manners.  She told us about the Rent-a-Pet program (which I think is now called TAP–Temporary Adoption Program) where you are allowed to “try-out” a potential pet first, to see if they get along with your family and any other pets you already have.  What a great idea!

She also shared with us about many of the success stories of Stray Rescue; about animals that were in terrible conditions that were then rescued and are now living in forever homes with loving families!  She told us about how Sheri, her dog, and Sheri’s brother, Eddie, were once Stray Rescue dogs that now live with her!

The visit was short, but we were left with some very useful information to help guide us in our next steps.  When we asked Constance about how we could best help Stray Rescue, she was able to give us a long wishlist of things that the organiziation always needs, things that enable them to take care of all of those dogs they help.  The most surprising thing she mentioned was peanut butter, which is used as an easy way to help the dogs take their medicine.  I’d never heard of that before!  In the end, though, she said what they need the most is money.  Most of the money they spend is in veterinary care for all of the animals they rescue, and that can get pretty expensive.  Helping to offset the cost of those bills would do wonders to help them rescue and save even more animals in our city!

So what does that mean for us?  Since the whole idea behind a service-learning project is to learn while you’re helping others, we decided it’s probably not the best idea to just collect money.  We want to add more to our project and really “plus” the amount that we can get out of it.  So we’re going to go with our original idea of creating things that we can sell, and then we’ll donate the money to Stray Rescue when we’re finished.  I’m excited about all of the ideas we’ve thrown around, and how much we will learn through that process.  As we get into it, I’ll be sure to update on our progress.

Until then, have you ever heard of Stray Rescue?  Have you ever rescued an animal?  What suggestions do you have for us as we go further in our project?  We’d love to hear what you’re thinking!

 

Riley, the Apple Man

Another project our school was involved in these last few weeks was a canned food drive to benefit Kirkcare.  As I wrote in my post about it, we have really been learning alot about hunger and how it affects kids and what we can do about it.  Thus a simple holiday project became a service-learning project.  If you haven’t read the comments on these posts by my students, be sure to see them–their words are proof that they’ve really been touched by the work we did.

So, then on Saturday I was able to extend the learning with my son, Riley, when we helped out at Kirkcare.  At first we thought we were going to be loading food from our school onto a truck and then call it a day.  Then I found out that we would actually be giving food to families that needed it and I was totally excited!  This was exactly what Riley and I had been talking about when we were shopping, and he was going to see it in action!

The set up was pretty simple: A person or family would come and check in, and they would be given a number to tell us how many boxes of food they were to receive (based on the size of their family).  We would then get that number of boxes together, add a ham and a bag of apples (and a bag of candy if there were children in the family) and then help them load it into their car.  Simple set up, but with amazing results.

At first Riley and I helped take food outside, but then Riley was given a really important job.  He became Riley, the Apple Man: he added 2 bags of apples to each cart that we were loading.  Again, simple job, but totally appropriate and special for a 4YO boy.  He was able to interact with the families as they came in, and to talk with all of us as we got boxes together.  There was a really nice lady from Kirkcare (I wish I had gotten her name!) who took a special interest in Ri, and helped him in his work.  She was known as the “Candy Lady” and of course, shared some with him.

Riley when we first arrived.  “Look at all this food, Mommy!”

A better view of the room of food!  I thought it was so cute that Riley went around and found all of the things he knew he had bought to put in the boxes.  He was so proud that he had helped!

Riley, the Apple Man! (He really is jazzed to do this job.  Just not about me taking a picture of him doing it.)

Riley putting apples in a cart with Mrs. Frierdich.

I am so happy that I was able to do this with my little buddy.  Even though he’s only 4, and he doesn’t understand what it feels like to have a hungry belly, and he doesn’t know anybody that does, he totally gets that one little person can make a difference in the life of somebody else.  He knows that he is lucky to have the things he does and that there are others who don’t.  Even since this food drive, we’ve wrapped gifts for a Stuff the Stocking project at his daddy’s school, where he knew that he was getting gifts for kiddos who wouldn’t have had any, and he noticed that his own preschool is having a canned food drive now!  Before last week, he wouldn’t have even known what that was, or what he was supposed to do.  Now he knows how to join in and do important work–work that many adults don’t participate in.

My hope is that I can continue this work that we started in him this week.  I want to always help him to ask “What can I do?”  I want him to be involved in helping others, not just at the holidays.  I want him to grow up to think of others before himself, to always look for ways to be involved in his community.  Even one little person can make a difference.  And some day that little person will be a bigger person, who hopefully makes an even bigger difference. 🙂

Wanna join me?  How do you help promote this with your own kids? What do you do to help others?

More Than Community Service

Many schools participate in service-learning projects.  Ours is one of those.  But I’m not sure that until recently that I really knew what service-learning was.  I think that in years past, I’ve said that I did a service-learning project, but really it was nothing more than a brief activity we did related to a holiday food drive or because there was a hospital next door to our school and we thought it was a good idea.  Not until last month did I learn what I should have been doing in order to really call something service-learning.  And now we’re actually doing it.

Even though the name really does imply its definition, I think it’s easier to start by saying what service-learning is not:

  • It’s not just a one-time episode when you help someone.
  • It’s not an add-on to your curriculum.
  • It’s not logging in community service hours just because you have to.
  • It’s not just something big kids or grown-ups do.  (taken from information on http://www.servicelearning.org)

Service-learning is a strategy that involves meaningful, authentic service to address a problem or issue in your community, where your students learn and then reflect on what they’ve learned.  It benefits both the volunteers and the recipients of your service.

Ok, but how to you do it?  How do you make sure that you effectively combine the service part and the learning part so that your students benefit as well as the ones you are serving? Service-learning includes several important components to help make this happen:

  1. Preparation: As you prepare to do a service-learning project, your class (or school or Girl Scout Troop, etc) should identify a community need that you could address.  Brainstorm possibilities and then choose one.  After your need is chosen, then you will need to work to investigate or learn more about the need.  This can be done through internet research, reading books about the subject, talking with people or groups that might be involved in the work already, or a variety of other methods.  In the service-learning project we just did at our school, we focused on Veteran’s Day.  We had an assembly on Veteran’s Day where we learned more about what veterans are, listened to a current serviceman speak about his experiences in Iraq, met people in our community who were veterans, and sang patriotic songs.  We also read picture books and watched videos to help us get more information on the meaning of Veteran’s Day and why it should be important to every citizen in our country–even elementary students.
  2. Action: Not surprisingly, this is the step in which students actually do the service part of the project.  Again, this should be related to the identified community need, and based on the foundation built while you learned more about the topic during the preparation phase.  For our action step, we wrote letters to veterans.  Most kids in our school wrote to veterans in homes or hospitals.  We were lucky enough to have the name of an airman currently serving in the Middle East.  He was a friend of a classmate, and so we wrote to him and told him how much we appreciated what he does for our country to keep us safe.
  3. Reflection: Part of what makes service-learning more than just community service is the reflection stage.  Once you have completed your action step, it is important to step back and look at what has happened, what you have or can learn from it, and pay attention to the effects your project has had on you and those you were serving.  The reflection step of our Robinson service-learning project actually started with every student in our school receiving a letter of their own in the mail. Every member of our staff wrote letters to students–in their own handwriting, in a hand-addressed envelope–and then there were mailed home.  Later in the the same week, our class (and the rest of our school) sat down to reflect on how it had felt to receive a letter in the mail with their name on it.  The hope was that students could then apply how that might have felt for the veterans to whom we had written. My students did a great job of identifying how special and “noticed” they felt to have gotten mail addressed to them; usually the mail was for the grown-ups in their house or was bills or junk mail.  We had a great discussion about how our airman friend Mark might have felt alot of the same things when he received a big packet of letters from our class.  Our hope was that it helped him to realize that he was doing a good thing and that we had noticed.  We wanted him to feel proud for what he was doing to serve our country.  Many connections were made during our conversation.
  4. Demonstration/Celebration/Evaluation:After you’ve done the amazing work of your service-learning project, take time to celebrate it!  You could do this in a variety of ways, like by writing about what your students learned, in a journal or in a PowerPoint presentation.  You could create banners or posters around the school highlighting the project, coordinate news coverage about your project or post the project on the school website.  Here you also evaluate how the project went, and begin steps for doing your next service-learning project based on what happened this time around.  The celebration phase of our Robinson service-learning project is ongoing, really.  We have shared it on our website, and we are planning a schoolwide assembly in the spring at our school to highlight all of the projects that we will have been involved in throughout the year.  Our class may create Wordles about it (related to my post from yesterday), or blog about it (once we start this next week!).  No matter what we decided to do, it’s vital that we stopped to notice the work we had done and the difference we made!

So what will you do to participate in service-learning? Everyone can make a difference.