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Helping Bear the Burden
Grade Level: 3-5 Academic Areas: Interdisciplinary Duration of service: 8-10 weeks Character Virtues: Giving, Caring Service Areas: Human Services
Materials Needed: chart paper, computer, envelopes, postage, poster boards, 2-3 large laundry hampers Total Cost of Project: approximately $200 Time Needed for Project: flexible Time Needed for Teacher Preparation: two weeks Experience Needed in CE: little Experience Needed in SL: little
Service Learning Project: Working with local service organizations that serve global populations (e.g. local Rotary providing assistance for international children needing heart repair), students will initiate projects to encourage local businesses to provide goods (such as blankets, food, etc.) to those in need. School faculty and students will supply teddy bears with encouraging messages to be donated to ill children while local businesses help underwrite or provide materials for mailing/delivery of the bears. Activities will also include organizing a presentation to deliver bears to the partner organizations as contact with hospitalized recipients is limited or unadvisable. 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 address a local or international need through the solicitation of community support and goods, and the subsequent distribution to targeted recipients. Standard: HPEFC #3 Service Community need: Lack of emotional support for children and families experiencing the trauma of medical interventions, which can cause geographic relocation and financial and emotional stresses.. Possible Community Partners: Local non-profit service organizations (e.g., rotary), shelter providers (Ronal McDonald House), local merchants. Objective: Children will create posters and write letters to local businesses to solicit help and materials. They will write letters of support to children, siblings, and parents of targeted recipients. Objective: Students will attractively package and present bears to the partners who distribute bears during the coming year. 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. With the help of a volunteer medical professional or science teacher, students will provide a mini-lesson on sanitation/hygiene and reasons for limited handling of new teddy bears. 3. 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 plan a
ceremony to present bears to service organization representatives. 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
create posters of the Top Ten Reasons the Future Looks Brighter
to be displayed, then sent to recipients. They will write essays describing
what they have learned and how they have changed because of the project. 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. |
