Community Care Packages

Community is one of my favorite themes and the fact that it is two months long...it’s doubly fantastical!

I wanted to do something different from what I had done in the past.  

We hear the word community used so often and rightfully so.  It is one of those innate things that comes with the need to belong to something. And for my students, I wanted that something to be bigger than them.  We started off by watching Alex’s video and how she talked about the different communities she belongs to.  The kids made circles maps and brainstormed all of the different communities they belong to.  From classroom, school, neighborhood, church etc.  They found it interesting that they could belong to more than one community.  I then took it a step further to discuss the communities out there that are important to us.  One of my friends is in the military and I had an idea...so I put a little bug in their ears about the soldiers overseas.  We discussed how important their job is and how their community as soldiers makes our lives safe and protected.  

So, we decided to bring things in for some care packages.  Now I know some people went really big and I’m amazed at some of the ideas that are popping up on the G+ #Community!  However, my students at this time are very quiet and VERY shy!  They don’t show excitement, they don’t ask questions, they are just very reserved.  Which is why I chose to build a community within our classroom in hopes that they would feel comfortable being themselves in our classroom.  We kept it small in that only my students brought in donations.  I wanted them to directly feel like they contributed.  We brought in magazines, candy, snacks, and other items from the suggested lists.  

At the beginning of this 2nd month, I shipped our care packages along with some Christmas cards and letters to my friend and his unit who are overseas.  Luckily, right before we left for Winter Break, I found out that our packages arrived and were being enjoyed by all.  The kids took ownership of this activity and really felt a sense of community while doing so.  They realized that these soldiers are over there, thousands of miles away from their own communities and families.  Adding to the impact was the fact that it was the holidays and they wouldn’t be able to spend them with loved ones.  This gave my students the chance to look at life through a different lense.  One that many 5th graders haven’t looked through before.  They learned to be sympathetic to others and that sometimes, a kind gesture like this can mean the world.   

Life isn't always fair, is it?

That’s not fair!  How often do we hear that phrase? Don’t answer...it’s a rhetorical question!

Imagine being 10 or 11 years old.  The concept of fairness is as complex as trying to figure out why kids don’t follow directions the first time they are given.  Developmentally, these cherubs do not have the ability to differentiate what is fair and what is not fair.  If something doesn’t go the way they envision, it is automatically considered unfair.  So how do we go about trying to help our kiddos begin to grasp the concept and understand that...ya know? Sometimes, life just isn’t fair?

We opened the month playing a game that was purposely not fair.  We used spinners to play a math game and it was rigged so that certain spins had a considerably higher probability of being landed on.  The kids didn’t catch on super quickly, until one said….”I’ve won 30 times and my partner has only won 13! This game rules!”  Then the other pairs started tracking wins and realized that the spinner had unequal parts and that wasn’t fair.  I immediately asked, “What is fair? What does that mean?”

They came up with a classroom definition: Fairness is when all participants have an equal amount of chances at being successful.  Then we watched Alex’s video and how she related it to sports and life.  I called upon our PE teacher to help me out in this.  That way they didn’t just see it as something we are doing in class...and try to apply it outside our humble abode.  Coach Henderson was teaching a unit with  them playing flag football and demonstrated the rules for them.  They talked about non-examples of the rules and she videotaped them acting out these examples. They were better able to understand what was okay by having seen what isn’t acceptable.  

By the end of this month, I could see and hear these rockstars challenging ideas with thoughtful justifications.  Whether it was in the way I was calling upon them to answer a question, the rules of a math game, making up games themselves, or even life in general! We watch CNN Student News each morning and they are now able to look at the news stories about Syria and other countries at war and ask questions about what we can do to give those children an equal chance at life!  

Pretty powerful unit!  If I do say so myself!

Hi!

This isn't our topic post.  That's coming later this week.  I just wanted to let you all know that all my students and I are all safe and sound!  While some of my children live extremely close to or in one case on the streets where the storm damage occurred, none of them were hurt or had any damage to their homes.

Several people in the county (and other counties) weren't so lucky.  Trees fell on quite a few houses, cars were flipped, and a trailer park was heavily damaged.  (the links below)



Trailer Park

http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local/woman-survives-tornado-flipping-home/391424980

Community: Books and Treats... And our Live Chat

My students have really taken to Tyler and enjoy the time we get to spend learning from him. The community video was really helpful in understanding what a community is and how we can best support each other. I notice that students always dream big when tasked with helping their community and this year was no exception. After watching the video, my students brainstormed ideas that ranged from reading to younger grades, helping out at recess, to building a new animal shelter. We spent a lot of time discussing how they may help out in their community on their own and then landed on two projects they hope to complete. The projects are building a Little Free Library for the school and neighborhood and then making bags of snacks and treats for homeless men and women. We have a police department connection and that individual is going to help distribute the snack bags. This is the chart of planning we created as a class for everything we will need to do or supplies we will need to complete the project.

Students then worked in various small groups to research recipes, designs for little libraries, write our principal a letter to figure out installing a little library, etc. 

The Little Free Library may be a tough project to complete because we aren't sure about getting the permission necessary. I struggled with whether or not I should get this pre-approved for the kiddos, but realized that if we aren't able to do it, there is a lot of learning that can happen within that too!

This lesson used various search engines and I am excited that we are going to be able to start using our Bak Boards to complete the remainder of the project for writing proposals and researching. 

The standards this lesson targeted included:

The letter to the principal: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1.A
Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which ideas are logically grouped to support the writer's purpose.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1.B
Provide logically ordered reasons that are supported by facts and details.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1.C
Link opinion and reasons using words, phrases, and clauses (e.g., consequently,specifically).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.1.D
Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented.

Discussion and planning:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.4
Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

December also ended with our Live Chat and the students were enthralled... They even convinced Tyler to Whip and Nay Nay for us... I'll post that video to the G+ site ASAP!

Here are some pics from their conversation. It was great to see them so interested in him as a person and making connections. It definitely makes the experience more authentic and personalized now that they have talked to him!

Community

Community is a topic that our school and grade level focuses on - it is part of our social studies curriculum - so I was excited to revisit this topic in November and December.  My students had learned that a community is a place where people live, work, and play, and we had briefly talked about ways to improve our community.  To introduce this topic as part of Classroom Champions, we started by reviewing the idea of community with a Frayer model.  Together, we discussed the definition, characteristics, examples, and nonexamples of a community.  The chart that we made is shown below.

'

Next, we watched Alex Rigsby's video.  She challenged us to write down one way we made our community better.  We talked about how our school and our classroom within the school were two communities we were part of, and we brainstormed ways we could make those communities better.  The students' ideas are shown above.  Over the next few weeks, we periodically revisited this list to add ideas to it.  

The next week, I told the students that we would be doing a community service project together as a class.  Mrs. Couch's class and my class worked together, and we thought of Operation Gratitude and Ronald McDonald House as two charities that our classes could organize community service projects for.  We presented both options to our classes, but they were torn and wanted to donate to both organizations.  We decided that we would do Pennies for Patriots to donate to Operation Gratitude first, and then collect tabs from cans for Ronald McDonald House in the spring.  The kids and we were excited to be able to do both!

In the meantime, we got down to work to get ready for Pennies for Patriots.  I showed the kids a video that explained Operation Gratitude.  It is a great organization that sends care packages to soldiers.  They run a program called Pennies for Patriots through which the kids collect coins; for every $15 they collect, Operation Gratitude is able to send one package.  We set a goal of collecting $500.

To prepare for the project, the kids labeled jars that would go in each classroom.  That way, each classroom had a place to collect their coins.  The kids brought the jars around to the right classrooms.

Next, they made posters that explained the project.  We put them up all around the school to advertise.

 The most exciting part of the project was that many of the students were able to go on the morning news to explain it.  I integrated the project into writing by having the students write an informational paragraph about Pennies for Patriots and Operation Gratitude.  Their paragraphs were impressive - their passion and excitement for the project really came out.  I chose six students to read their paragraphs on the morning news.  This was a really big deal for them and they loved pretending to be news anchors like the fifth graders.  In the end, we collected coins for two weeks and raised close to $500!

To finish up the topic, we reflected back on Alex Rigsby's challenge.  Each student wrote down one way they improved their community in the past few weeks, and drew a picture to go with it.  We shared our pictures with each other.  Here are some of their responses.

I think that my students learned a lot these past two months.  They were more conscious of how small actions like cleaning the lunch table or helping a friend could improve their community, which led to them doing those actions more often.  They also got excited about helping other people through our community service project.

K/1/2 Kindness Quilt

We watched the video of the story "The Kindness Quilt".  Then the kids spent a couple of weeks focusing on being kind to everyone they meet.  They kept track of their kindness tasks and then illustrated some on a quilt square.  Here's pictures of some of the kids working as well as the final project completed. +Michelle Salt

Consul School Community Service

We had our cookie sale on December 8 and raised over $180 to cover the cost of a microphone and stand for our community hall.  We delivered the money to the president of the hall board today - she also works at the bank and was able to take our deposit.  Here's the whole crew.  They were very proud of what they accomplished! This includes my class as well as Tami Reynolds and Jodi Geiger.