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Grade Level: K-2
Academic Areas: Language Arts
Duration of service: Year-Long
Character Virtues: Respect, Caring
Service Areas: Human Services
Materials Needed: writing paper and instruments, craft materials
for cards, gifts, and refreshments for the celebration
Total Cost of Project: $30 – 70 depending on the type of supplies
and the cost of transportation
Time Needed for Project: 1 writing block per letter response and
center craft time
Time Needed for Teacher Preparation: 30-60 minutes per week
Experience Needed in CE: little or none
Experience Needed in SL: little or none
Service Learning Project:
After reading the book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem
Fox, students will collaborate with local religious and service
groups to identify isolated senior citizens. Students will correspond
on a monthly or more frequent basis (depending on the speed of
response from pen pals) by letter/card with senior citizens, gathering
information to use in an original poem, story, or drawing. Senior
citizens will be asked to share any talents with the class. Students
will plan activities and provide materials for projects and activities
that they will do with the seniors. Projects will be displayed
throughout the service learning partner communities (i.e. school,
nursing home, senior day treatment center) as well as at the final
Celebration of Friendship in June.
Goals and Objectives
Academic
Learning Goal: Students will write letters and cards to their
intergenerational pen pals on a monthly (or more frequent) basis.
Standard: ELA #1, Language for information and understanding
Learning Goal: Students will create poetry and/or stories and
drawings about their pen pal based on information gathered during
correspondence.
Standard: ELA #1, Language for information and understanding ELA
#4 Language for social interaction
Learning Goal: Students will read appropriate books to their pen
pals during visits.
Standard: ELA Reading #4
Learning Goal: Students will orally present their written projects
to their pen pals during the final celebration.
Standard: ELA #2
Service
Community need: Increased social isolation in the senior population
within the community resulting in increased health problems and
issues for this group.
Possible Community Partners: Religious outreach programs, senior
citizen centers, nursing homes, social workers, and transport
services, AmeriCorps ,VISTA
Objective: Students will bridge the gap between generations by
regular correspondence with seniors.
Objective: Students will invite and arrange transportation for
seniors to participate in student-planned classroom activities
throughout the year.
Character
Virtue: Caring
Objective: Students will show interest in the senior community
around them by communicating through senior pen pal letter writing.
Virtue: Respect
Objective: Students will gain a greater understanding of the senior
citizens’ value as community members through written communication.
Key Activities
Key Planning Activities
1. After reading Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox,
students will discuss ways to befriend seniors. Attention should
be given to the differences and similarities in peer friendships
and friendship with seniors. Students will be asked to develop
a list of potential senior pen pals using community resources
such as parents, nursing homes, churches, senior centers, etc.
If this activity is done with lower grades, comparisons can be
made through pictures or group venn diagrams.
Key Service Activities
1. The main intent of the letter writing is to develop reciprocal
friendships that will enrich the seniors’ and students’
lives. Students will write a letter of introduction to their senior
pen pal and include questions about the senior’s childhood.
(In the lower grades, a closure letter can be used.) As relationships
develop, craft projects can be made with the pen pal’s interests
in mind and be sent with written correspondence. Subsequent letters
will follow with further questions about senior’s interests,
talents and life. Students will provide the same information to
the senior.
2. Students will invite senior pen pals to visit their class and
share a special talent or craft making activity with the class.
Students will plan and collect necessary materials for the activity
with seniors. Completed projects will be displayed at various
locations within the community along with posters and photos of
the process.
Key Reflection Activities
1. (oral) Students will share a memory of a time when they felt
lonely and how a caring person made them feel better.(caring)
Also, before and after the visits, students will discuss how they
feel and how they think their pen pals feel during their visits.
(caring and respect)
2. (performance) Students will write or draw a picture of an elderly
person who is or was very special to them. They should include
reasons why they admired or appreciated them. (respect)
3. (written) Students will keep a correspondence journal of letters
sent to and received from their senior pen pal during the year.
Each student will add an entry after each response reacting to
the voice and tone of their pen pal. They may also include questions
they want to ask and things they wish to share in future letters.
(caring and respect)
Demonstration Activity
Students will invite their senior pen pal to a “Celebration
of Friendship.” Students will read poems and/or stories
and drawings which they created with information gathered during
the year-long correspondence. Students will contact local newspaper
and media to cover the event. Students will solicit funds and/or
transportation for the event. An invitation will be extended to
parents and supporting community members.
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