Veteran's Day Service Learning

Grade level: 2nd

Number of students Participating: 63

Contributed by:

Teacher: Jerri Payne

School: Robert D. Johnson Elementary

District: Fort Thomas Independent

Overview/Description of Project: Students will correspond with local nursing home members, some being veterans, and begin writing letters to the senior citizens. Students will visit the nursing home and interview their pen pals about what it means to be a veteran. Students will create a powerpoint presentation about their nursing home pen pals. Students will visit the nursing home a second time to sing some patriot songs and show their powerpoint to the residents.

Goals:

To develop letter writing skills

To develop interview and public speaking skills

To provide entertainment for the senior citizens

To provide opportunities for students to interact with senior citizens

To learn about issues facing the elderly in the community.

To learn about what it means to be a veteran and the holiday, Veteran's Day.

Core Content Areas:

Reading/Writing: 1.2, 1.11 Students read books and other material about nursing homes, Veteran's Day, and senior citizens. They develop letter writing skills through their letters to the nursing home residence. They develop interview skills through interviewing senior citizens.

Social Studies: 2.15, 2.16, 2.17 Students learned about their responsibilities as citizens to care for the elderly in their community. They learned how institutions in this country take care of the elderly. They also learned how to interact with people different from themselves.

Arts and Humanities: 2.22, 2.24 Students sand patriotic songs while visiting the nursing home and made patriotic art pieces to leave with the senior citizens.

Practical Living: 2.29, 2.33 Students learned how families care for elderly and the services nursing homes provide to elderly in their community.

Step 1 - Preparation:

* Contact the nursing homes in the community to request names of people who would be interested in receiving letters from students and to be interviewed.

* Students discuss/learn about forms of personal letters and begin correspondence.

* Teacher/students read various books and materials to help students get a better understanding of senior citizens and veterans.

* Students visit the nursing home to interview students for their Powerpoint presentation.

* Students work together to create Powerpoint presentation.

* Students learn some patriotic songs to sing at the nursing home.

* Students create patriotic craft item for nursing home residents.

* Visit nursing home to sing songs, show the Powerpoint presentation, and deliver craft items.

Step 2 - Action:

* Students create patriotic craft items, learn patriotic songs, write letters to senior citizens, and make two visits to a local nursing home.

Step 3 - Reflection/Celebration:

Throughout the Service Learning project, students will write in their journals about the experience. Students will also present their Powerpoint presentation and songs for the school in an assembly on Veteran's Day.

Using On-line Resources

On-line resources are a great way to improve lessons and engage students. I love the list of resources that was generated by my classmates. I found myself spending days scouring each site and trying to figure out what I could use. I was overwhelmed, but excited! I know I will utilize many of these sites when I create lessons next year. I love that I am switching grades because it forces me to look for new resources. I hope that these on-line resources will help me incorporate more technology into my lessons.

For me, the main issue I find with using on-line resources is the time involved in finding just what you want and figuring out where to incorporate it in the lesson.

A pronoun takes the place of a noun.

A Pronoun Takes the Place of a Noun from Grammaropolis on Vimeo.

Introductory Blog

Hi, this is the first blog I have used. I am excited to be working with blogs for this class. I am sure we are all trying to effectively engage our students. I have found technology to be a wonderful way to engage students. Having taught for 21 years, I was teaching before technology came into the classroom. Working in Fort Thomas, I have been very fortunate to have a great deal of technology available for my use. Every classroom at my school has a Smartboard. I love incorporating the Smartboard in my lessons. I have also used a software called Photostory with my students. It is an easy to use software that allows students to use photos to create a story that they can narrate by using a microphone. After we went on a field trip to a Naturalization ceremony, I downloaded the pictures to our network server, and the students created Photostory projects to show what they learned on the trip. Finally, I have used the epals program (www.epals.com) to connect my students to epals around the world. This connection then leads to many engaging writing activities.

For the past 5 years I have been teaching 5th grade. Next year I will be teaching 2nd grade. I am very excited to return to teaching primary students.