Community Service

We all have a natural connection to our community, but we can strengthen that with acts of kindness to those around us. Often, those acts need to be intentional and we need to seek out the opportunity. When we do it has a ripple effect on our community and it will continue to spread as long as we all participate. This lesson will help students understand the importance of intentionally seeking out opportunities for community service and how those acts will impact the community.

Materials

Video: Life Vest Inside – Kindness Boomerang:  

Instructions

• Show the video.
• After the video, ask students the following questions. 
  • What happened when each character went out of their way to help the next?
  • Would that character have helped the next character if they had not been helped before?
  • What caused each person to help the next person?
  • Can our class cause a chain reaction like this? How could we start?
• Brainstorm ideas as a classroom about  a service project or acts of kindness you could do this month. Write all possible ideas down and encourage all students to add any idea that comes to mind. In brainstorming, it is important to allow all ideas to make it to the list and then you can refine ideas in a later step. Talk about any obstacles that may limit this project. There may be a budget, no money at all or time may be a consideration.
• Set any parameters after the first brainstorm list and allow the students to problem solve to either overcome the obstacle or decide to remove it from the list.
• Refine the list to possible projects or acts and allow the class to vote.

Extension

Literature gives us many characters who seek out opportunities and make intentional choices to positively impact community. Characters are great at reinforcing concepts and we have picked out a few that are quick and easy reads. These stories can supplement transition or wait activities. Choose a story below and discuss how each character made a choice and how that choice impacted their community.

• Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña
• Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson
• What If Everybody Did That?by Ellen Javernick
• If Everybody Did by Jo Ann Stover
• Is There Really a Human Race? by Jamie Lee Curtis
• Fill A Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children by Carol McCloud
• A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
• Stone Soup by Marcia Brown

Discussion/Journal Prompts

• What would you do if you were that character?
• How do you think the other character felt?
• How did that action impact the next one?
• How does that help build the community?