Helping Bear the Burden

Grade Level: 3-5

Academic Areas: Interdisciplinary

Duration of service: Year-Long

Character Virtues: Giving, Caring

Service Areas: Human Services

 

Service Learning Project:

Working with local service organizations that provide temporary residence to families of children facing medical difficulties, students will initiate projects to encourage school faculty, parents, and local businesses to provide goods (such as teddy bears, blankets, food, etc.) to those in need. Activities will include writing to local businesses and parents to solicit donations, delivering these donations to families with ill children, and collecting and delivering a teddy bear and encouraging message to each child. In culmination, students will host a teddy bear picnic.

Goals and Objectives

Academic

Learning Goal: Students will write and speak convincingly to persuade community members to participate in the community.

Standard: ELA #1,4

Learning Goal: Students will understand and be able to manage their personal and community needs through the solicitation of community support and goods, and distribution to the targeted recipients

Standard: HPEFC #3

Service

Community need: Lack of support system for families experiencing medical emergencies.

Possible Community Partners: Local non-profit service organizations (e.g., rotary), shelter providers (Ronal McDonald House), local merchants.

Objective: The students will collect teddy bears and attach messages of support and encouragement for children undergoing medical procedures.

Objective: Students will collect and distribute items to support families of children receiving medical attention (e.g., food, blankets, personal hygiene products, books, etc.).

Character

Virtue: Giving

Objective: Students will use their time at school and their personal time after school to plan this activity and deliver packages.

Virtue: Caring

Objective: Students will understand the needs of the recipients and demonstrate their care by providing support to those unable to obtain it on their own.

Key Activities

Key Planning Activities

  1. Students will participate in a teacher-led discussion in which they brainstorm to create a list of items families may need while their child receives medical attention.
  2. Students will write a persuasive letter to their parents and community businesses soliciting donations of bears, food, hygiene, clothing, and accessories for medical patients and their families.

 Key Service Activities

  1. Students will collect teddy bears and attach messages of support and encouragement. Students will then deliver the bears to children in the hospital.
  2. Students will prepare packages containing blankets, food, hygiene products, and other collected materials, and will deliver them to the families.

Key Reflection Activities

  1. (oral – caring) As they research and meet the needs of children and families experiencing a medical crisis, students will discuss how they might feel if in a similar situation. A child speaker who has been through a medical crisis will come and hold a discussion with the students about what that experience is like.
  2. (written – giving) Students will design posters and banners depicting their experiences during the different phases of this project. The posters and banners will be displayed throughout the school.
  3. (performance – giving) Students will create a video-taped message of their thoughts and feelings about the project for the children to whom they gave teddy bears. Each child will receive a copy.

Celebration Activity

Families and all community members who assisted in the will be invited to attend a teddy bear picnic.