Monday, November 12, 2012

Service learning update


As you may remember, our grade 5 & 6 students have started a service learning program this year and boy, oh boy have we made some progress. Once we completed a needs assessment of our community, chose our charities and set our semester goals, we hit the ground running with recess fundraisers and a school-wide book drive (more on that later). I was a little worried if they’d be able to pull it off, but they threw any doubts I had right out the window. They ROCKED IT! (I'm so proud)

The great thing about service learning is that it has all kinds of great curriculum tie-ins. The kids sent out surveys in google drive to learn what kind of fundraiser to do, created flyers to advertise, wrote and delivered announcements to every class, and that all happened before the actual fundraisers!

In preparation for the actual events, we learned some basic principles of economics and weighed the costs and profits that we could expect from each fundraising idea that was proposed. Finally, the date had been set and each group had decided on their snack. One group was insistent on making smoothies and could not be dissuaded by logic. I tried to warn them at the amount of work that would be involved, but they were too excited and I figured that letting them make the decisions (good or bad) would ultimately benefit them. So- smoothies it wasJ. The other group chose popcorn which was much more manageable and logistically sound.

Our first fundraiser was scheduled during a Friday recess and each group was given only 45 minutes to prepare their booth and product. Once recess let out, it was non-stop action. I loved how well they all worked together to make it happen. They assigned each person on their team a job; line control, cashier, packaging, order taker. I mean to tell you, it was amazing.

By the end of recess, we were sweaty and exhausted, but EVERYONE had a smile on their face. We counted the money we made and came out ahead by more than $150! Not too bad for our first-ever fundraiser, huh? Here are a few shots from the big day:

Announcing the fundraiser

Slingin' popcorn

Check out this line!!!

That's what teamwork looks like:)

If teaching doesn't pan out, I can always work at Jamba Juice... hehehe
 
 
 

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