Showcase Your Caring Community

1. Open a class discussion about caring people who are leaders in their community. What jobs or volunteer work do they perform for the community? How do students see representations of these efforts in their daily lives? Make a list of student contributions to the discussion using Crayola® Dry Erase Markers on an available white board.
2. Next, ask students to identify characteristic traits that they would like to honor. List student suggestions on the white board. Talk about each one and ask students if they can identify specific people in their lives or community that consistently demonstrate these traits.
3. Students will work independently or in teams of two to create two banners. Using Crayola Scissors, students cut paper to a given size to create the background for the two banners. On the first, they will write the leadership trait in large letters using Crayola Erasable Colored Pencils and Crayola Twistables® Crayons. Use a dictionary to find a crisp definition of the trait. Include this definition on the first banner. Encourage students to add borders to the banner and decorate it as they determine appropriate.
4. One the second banner, ask students to show the leader they have selected to honor demonstrating the chosen trait. Underneath the illustration, students will write a 2-3 sentences describing the person, his job, and community contributions. Encourage student to add design elements to the banner as they deem appropriate to make it appealing.
5. Provide time in the school day for students to share their Caring Community banners with classmates.
6. Students can use hook and loop fastener tape to attach all of the class banner sets together. These can be displayed in the classroom or school hallway.

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

LA: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

MATH: Know relative sizes of measurement units within one system of units including km, m, cm; kg, g; lb, oz.; l, ml; hr, min, sec. Within a single system of measurement, express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit.

SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.

SS: Give examples of and explain group and institutional influences such as religious beliefs, laws, and peer pressure, on people, events, and elements of culture.

SS: Give examples of the role of institutions in furthering both continuity and change.

VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.

VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Possible classroom resource includes: Time For Kids: John F. Kennedy: The Making of a Leader by The Editor for TIME for Kids

Encourage students to organize and carry out a Leadership Day. Invite honorees to visit the school and speak about their work and recognize their contributions to the community.

Encourage students to investigate careers that they are interested in, the education needed to practice a career of choice, and identify the leadership qualities needed to be most successful. Organize research into an electronic format for presentation or prepare to orally deliver learning to classmates. If done orally, students may consider using recycled materials to create a costume for the performance.