Title of Project: Every Age is Special

Grade Level: K-2

Number of Students Participating:

Contributed by:

Teacher:

School:

District or County:

Overview/Description of Project: Children “interview” peers and family members/guardians to learn more about the older adults important in their lives.

Goals:

• Children appreciate the positive contributions of grandparents and other older adults.

• Children learn both good and challenging aspects of growing older.

• Children recognize their ability to contribute to healthy families and communities.

Core Content Areas:

• READING:  1.2  students make sense of the variety of materials they read.

• SOCIAL STUDIES:  2.16  students observe, analyze, and interpret human behaviors, social groupings, and institutions to better understand people and the relationships between individuals, and among groups.

• WRITING:  1.11  students write using appropriate forms, conventions and styles to communicate ideas and information…for different purposes.

• GOAL 4: students shall develop their abilities to become responsible members of a family, work group, or community, including demonstrating effectiveness in a community service.

• VOCATIONAL STUDIES 2.36  students use strategies for choosing and preparing for a career.

• 1.13  Students make sense of ideas and communicate ideas with the visual arts.

• 6.3  students expand their understanding of existing knowledge by making connections with new knowledge, skills and experiences.

• ARTS & HUMANITIES:  2.22  students create works of art and make presentations to convey a point of view.

• 5.3  students organize information into develop or change their understanding of a concept.

• 2.32  students demonstrate strategies for becoming and remaining mentally and emotionally healthy.

PARC MODEL STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

PREPARATION:

• The teacher reads with the class children’s books about older persons, multigenerational households, and friendships between young and old.

• Teacher & class identify the older persons the children know, and then decide on questions the children will use to interview 1 or 2 household members either about their memories of an older family member, or about their own experience of aging.

• An older person is invited in to tell the class about the advantages & disadvantages of aging.

• A long-term care or senior services staff person is invited to tell the class about social services & healthcare careers involving work with older adults.

ACTION:

• The class creates posters describing admirable qualities of, talents of, childhood of, the older persons whom they interviewed. These posters are displayed in the hallways, perhaps on a day(s) celebrating all ages as special.

• The class begins a “pen pals” program with a local retirement center’s residents by introducing themselves and the older adults they’ve profiled for the school.

• An older adult from the community visits the class to teach them a skill or craft.

• The teacher or a student’s parent/guardian films the project activities from preparation thru celebration.

REFLECTION:

• Designate a bulletin board or other area of the classroom as a service-learning center, posting photographs and other reminders each project.

• The children are assisted in drawing simple family trees, which can be decorated with drawings of and/or photographs of the relations. 

• Using magazine clippings, construction paper, and other materials, each child assembles a collage representing “5 Things I’ll Like about being Older.”

• Responses to the class letters to a local retirement center are read aloud and posted in the room.

CELEBRATION: Still photos, explanation, and video clip(s) of the project are posted on the school’s website.