Primary Grades
Project Ideas (K-3)
There are many ways to
incorporate service-learning into your existing curriculum. Here is a
list of abstracts of a number of actual project completed by
pre-service and student teachers during the past few
years:
Kindergarten - Students developed booklets containing activities they had done in their first year of school and felt that preschool children would like to hear about. The kindergarten children read the booklets that they had produced to preschool children so that the preschool children could better understand what kindergarten was really like.
1st grade - As part of a social studies unit first grade students prepared a Thanksgiving feast, decorated tables and invited needy people from the community to participate. This feast was compared to the first Thanksgiving feast.
1st grade - 85 first grade students designed and made placemats with a Christmas theme. These mats were laminated and presented to the local "Food and Friends" program to be given to the shut-ins with their holiday meal.
2nd grade - Math students studying symmetry designed valentines and presented the valentines to a local adult foster care home.
2nd grade - As part of the social studies curriculum that dealt with learning about community's students implemented a project to assist the local library. The students collected "pop" cans for their deposit which was then donated to the children's section of the library to enhance the number of books and the space where they are stored and read.
3rd grade - Math and language arts students studying symmetry and reading about veterans made valentine cards and presented them to a local veteran's hospital.
3rd grade - Science and social studies students studying the 3 R's (recycle, reduce and reuse) made posters for their room. They eventually expanded the use of their posters to the halls in the school and eventually to store fronts downtown.
3rd grade - Students helped the local community library by designing and making new book covers for children's books in the library. Each student read the book and wrote a brief summary of the book as well as producing the new cover.
1st grade - The
children combined a science lesson (growing marigolds) with art
(decorating pots) to produce unique gifts for senior citizens in a
home adjacent to the elementary school. The children presented the
gifts individually to the residents of the home.
2nd grade - As part of Writing Month and a Book-It project the students wrote and drew pictures about their favorite books on grocery bags. They gave the finished bags back to the grocery store, who used the bags to pack shoppers' groceries. This project worked on students reading and writing skills, school publicity, encouraging reading, and hopefully brightened a shopper's day.
3rd grade - As a means to encourage writing about the author Beverly Cleary these students wrote and drew pictures about the books they were reading on grocery bags which were then returned to the store to be used to pack groceries. A good deal of community interest was generated in what the children were doing in their classroom.
3rd grade - As a result of a story read in class and to encourage students to write more the children wrote letters to "Sheriff Bud" about problems they were experiencing. The letters were answered by a group of high school English students posing as "Sheriff Bud" or one of his assistants. Both groups of students enjoyed the project and seemed encouraged by the help they gave each other. The questions and their responses were bound and placed in the library for the entire school to use.
1st grade - Students designed and produced Halloween "trick or treat" bags for kindergarten children. The first graders wrote Halloween safety tips on the bags and talked with the "younger" children about safe ways to trick or treat.
1st grade - Students in one classroom and one third grade classroom combined to write poems and to decorate cards which they took to a local nursing home and presented to the seniors.
1st grade - Students visited and interviewed senior citizens, played games with them and helped to teach some seniors how to read.
Non graded primary - Two classrooms as part of their science classes started a school recycling program and acted as resource people for the other classes in the building.
2nd grade - A classroom grew flowers from seeds to give to the seniors along with making get well cards for those that had been admitted to the local hospital.
3rd grade - Students adopted a kindergarten class that had no formal music instruction and taught them songs for enjoyment. Often these were songs that tied into a unit that one of the classes had been studying.
3rd grade - Students made an "ABC" Big Animal Book with illustrations which was then shared with second graders. Individual students used their book to help the seconds master the words.
Possible Projects Sub-Menu: