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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.
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