Let Me Be Your Eyes, Let Me Be Your Ears, Let Me Be Your Friend

Grade Level: k-2

Academic Areas: Language Arts

Duration of service: Year Long

Character Virtues: Caring, Justice and Fairness

Service Areas: Education/Tutoring

 

 

Service Learning Project:

To create/implement a school-wide campaign that will raise awareness and instill compassion for community members with disabilities. Introduce the children to specific disabilities initially through literature (i.e. Moses goes to the concert; deafness) and videos. Contact representatives from various organizations i.e. (Helen Keller Society, Guide Dog Association) to arrange classroom visit so that students can better understand their challenges. Primary children will become the school leaders in completing a survey that identifies how user friendly school is for people with specific disabilities. Children will advocate positive messages through posters inter class discussion and make recommendations to administrators that will improve accessibilities throughout the school.

Goals and Objectives

Academic

Learning Goal: Children will learn how to effectively communicate by creating posters about tolerance and respect.

Standard: (2) The Arts

Learning Goal: Students will complete a survey to determine if their school is user friendly for people with disabilities.

Service

Community need: Lack of direct attention within the school to the accessibility needs of the physically challenged.

Possible Community Partners: National Association for Hearing, Guide Dog Association, United Cerebral Palsy, National Association for the Blind.

Objective: To raise the awareness of younger children to the challenges people experience with various disabilities.

Objective: Children will make recommendations to adapt their school to become more accessible to those with disabilities

Character

Virtue: Caring

Objective: To listen and be concerned about members of our school and community who are physically challenged.

Virtue: Justice and Fairness

Objective: To teach the children to advocate and adapt their environment for the needs of persons with disabilities.

Key Activities

Key Planning Activities

 After completing a unit on the five senses, teacher will read literature depicting the lose of a sense and how it creates a disability. (i.e. Moses Goes to a Concert, by ________________).

 Invited members from various support and Advocacy Agencies will present and demonstrate various techniques used by their members to meet their challenges.

 Key Service Activities

 Children will conduct a simple survey to examine the accessibility for handicapped people throughout the building.

 Children will provide recommendations to administrations to make changes in and around their building using posters and a map of the school showing areas that need to be made accessible for the physically challenged.

 Children will advocate positive messages through posters and interclass discussions .

 Key Reflection Activities

 (oral) Children will role play the difficulty of a person who cannot express his/her needs using language and how they could "listen" to that person’s needs.

 (written) Students write or draw about their experience talking to the other classes about disabilities and discuss how the virtues of justice and fairness were addressed.

 (performance) Children will perform a skit depicting characters with specific disabilities highlighting their understanding, compassion and kindness.

Celebration Activity

Unveiling of students’ recommendations and map of school depicting areas to be made accessible. Parents, agency advocates, community leaders various school administrators will be invited to attend.