November is here and it's community service month. What do you do to help your community? I have a friend who's making blankets for foster children. I love this idea.
Having students participate in activities which will help the community and organizations who give service to those in need, is a great start for creating a philanthropist (Phi·lan·thro·py- humanitarianism, generosity, brotherly love :-) awareness within your students. It doesn't have to be anything expensive or complicated.
With that said, my students wrote letters to soldiers who are stationed in Afghanistan. This just happened to be a quick idea I had since I saw how my friend WO Hernandez would comment about his days on Facebook. Some days it was positive, other days I could sense he needed a pick me up. I began by expressing to my students the need to help others and how soldiers stationed far from home may need a friendly message to let them know how much we appreciate what they do. We also talked about the service soldiers give to keep us safe. My students understood the concept and immediately wanted to write letters to thank those soldiers. It became our writing project mixed in with how to write friendly letters :). I asked parents to also donate little snacks to send to soldiers, and a box was sent in hopes it would get there by Veteran's Day!
Finally, yesterday they received letters and goodies from two of our second grade classes! Here's the picture they took with our poster. I'm truly honor to be a part of brightening up their day! My students will love seeing this pic on Monday!
Happy Veteran's Day to all soldiers!
*I have my own personal veteran here at home SSG. DLT and he knows I always appreciate him :).
