Ronald McDonald House Charities Project comes to an end

I wanted to show you how much we collected for donations for our February Community Service Project.  Our 4th Grade Buddies came down to our room on Friday to help us sort and classify our items (this is a critical skills for math, science and problem-solving).  They were tasked to figure out a system together for sorting the items.  We then went back after we were done the first time sorting the donations and then we did it again, refining our classifications and fixing mistakes (this is critical for reading and writing - editing and checking our work in all subjects).  Mr. Alcamo and I were so impressed with their problem-solving skills, their reasoning and logic skills and their oral language skills as they worked together (over 44 children at the same time!), solved problems, navigated the space, resolved conflicts, constructed arguments and managed their time.  These are definitely going to be our leaders of tomorrow!

Our donations.

Sorry for the blurry pictures but I have to do that to protect the children's identities.  This is a shot of all of the kids working with their 4th Grade Buddies to sort and classify their donations.

Here are all of the donations before they started sorting and classifying them.

This is how the donations looked when the students were done sorting and classifying them.  They decided to put all of the cleaning supplies into one category.

The next category they created was food.

The other Kindergarten classrooms collected gum for their project and donated it all to our project.  There was so much gum it got it's own category!

This was the kitchen cleaner section they created during their "revision" the second time they went through to edit their first attempt at sorting the donations.  The cleaning item table got too full so they broke that category into three separate sections.  One for general cleaning, one for kitchen cleaning and one for laundry.

This was their personal hygiene category.  I was really impressed with how they navigated this project.  This was the academic portion of our project.  We also did lessons on why we collected the items, who we donated them for and that we expect nothing in return.  We will be weighing the items by category and listing how much we collected by pounds and by number of items for math on Monday.

 

Teaching Children to Give

I spoke with you about doing a community service project during the holiday season with the children at Kindergarten Orientation.  It is that time!  This year we will be collecting items for the Ronald McDonald House Charities of St. Louis.  Our Fourth Grade Buddies are teaming up with us on this adventure.  We will be talking to the children about giving to children who may have to spend the holidays in a hospital this year.  This is a great way to combat the "I Want" Syndrome that can happen during this time of year.  I will be sending home the wish list of items.  I will also post ideas about how to use this opportunity to strengthen your child's academic skills at home.  Here is the wish list from Ronald McDonald House Charities.  We are concentrating on supporting the Ronald McDonald Rooms located in St. Louis Hospitals.  I will highlight the items they are needing the most.

To keep each of our Ronald McDonald Houses and Ronald McDonald Family Rooms running as a home, we rely on Wish List item donations. Fifty-nine families stay at our Houses each night and we could use your help in making their stay as comfortable as possible. Approximately 6,000 families use the Family Rooms each year, as well.
Did you know you can also purchase and donate Wish List items at 11 area Walgreen's stores? For more information, including a list of participating stores, click here.

Gift CardsSam’s, Home Depot, Lowes, Target, and gas cards
Pre-packaged, individually wrapped snack foods, includingCookies, soups, breakfast bars, hot chocolate, trail mix, dried fruit, peanut butter or cheese sandwich crackers
Cleaning SuppliesDisinfectant spray cleaner
Hand sanitizer in the pump container
Soft Scrub
All purpose cleaner
Air freshener, (Febreze)
Liquid and soap in the pump containerLaundry SuppliesSoftener Sheets
Laundry detergent (high-efficiency only)
Travel-sized itemsRazors, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant
Kitchen SuppliesDishwasher detergent
Ziploc baggies, (small and large)
Food storage containers with lids, (large)Pots and pans, (approximately 16 qt.)
Misc.Event and entertainment tickets
Adult board games
Stamps
We are running especially low on the following items:We are in need of pre-packaged, single serve food items, such as breakfast bars, crackers, cookies, chips, fruit cups and applesauce.


We will use the donations to in our curriculum in the following ways:

• Weighing the donations and totaling the weight of all donations
• Sorting the items and classifying them in multiple ways
• Reading the labels
• Examining the 3-dimensional shapes and identifying them by name
• Character and social/emotional educations (teaching empathy, helping others, serving the community)
• Writing cards to children in the hospital whose families are using the Ronald McDonald Rooms at the hospitals
• Money concepts (how much the items cost)