Handwritten letters are one of my favorite things in the entire world. So, teaching my students to write letters is such fun - plus, it's a quick little unit so it's perfect to do right before Thanksgiving Break.

This year, I have a precious little boy in my class who often says things that just make my day! He is so sweet, earnest, adorable, and just plain funny! Before I get to the part of the story with him in it - I want to remember the "lightbulb moment" I had and some background that led up to this epiphany. 

Now, in the past at the end of this unit I've always asked the first graders who they want to mail a letter to. At first, I would just tell them to bring a stamped & addressed letter to school later that week so we could finish our project. Of course, I noticed a lot of the letters were written by parents and such. Which is totally fine! But I wanted the students to do it and I figured if I wanted them to learn it a certain way, I should be the one to teach them. Plus, it wouldn't always come back quickly because not every has stamps or envelope anymore, yada yada. 

So then, I started e-mailing their parents for the address (since it's typically a relative or friend). Then, I print each one out for them. Of course I had to take some time for this because I had to separate the return address from the mailing address and next thing you know, prepping this activity would take me 2 hours...and that's a problem...

So as they returned these papers and the first graders finished the letters they had been writing in class, I started to pull the students in small groups to address their envelopes. 

Okay - so finally it's one of my sweet first graders turns. He's sitting down, addressing his envelope. After about each line in the envelope he proceeds to put his pencil down and shake his hand out - because "oh man, it's just such hard work." Then, he finished addressing the envelope and I tell him "Good job! Now flip the envelope over, put your letter in it, lick the envelope & you're finished!" He just looks right at me and says "Oh, I've heard about this part." Of course I'm dying laughing in my head...you've heard about this? Like what, all the kids are meeting together to talk about it at recess? So I say "You've heard about this?" and he goes "yes, it's gross." So I respond "it's not that bad, just stuff it, lick it & you're good to go." He proceeds to stuff the envelope and then he puts it face down on the table (so the licking side is facing him) and fear factor style - puts his hands on each side of the envelope on the table and gives a big sigh. I say "It's okay, lick it." And he does. Then, I say "Well, how was it?!" He sweetly and very sarcastically responds: "MMMM, delicious." 

With all the new technology and advancements, there are so many things kids don't know about anymore or get to experience - like knowing what a VCR is (literally, one of my strongest readers paused for about 5 minutes when she came to this word because she had no clue what it was, let alone said), having chalkboards in schools, licking a stamp, etc. It's so fun to be able to provide them with a little bit of "old-school" experiences. 

It's the Roll Away Pumpkin! 

My absolute favorite thing from last week was our problem based learning activity that occurred in my classroom.

First thing Monday morning, one of my first graders walked in the door and said to me "I have an idea." She then shared with me how she wanted to collect stuffed animals so give to kids in Houston and the Texas coast who lost theirs due to flooding from Hurricane Harvey.  #bless

I was so on-board with making this 6 year old's sweet idea come to fruition. After she shared her idea with the class & told them what had happened in those areas last weekend, all of the students wanted to do something - even expanding her original idea to include food, clothes, & other necessities! 

I was truly amazed by what I was seeing naturally unfold before my eyes. As I stood there I watched twenty 6 year olds hear about a problem, talk with each other about how they can help, come up with quick questions they had for me, and then jump to the next step of what to do to help. During the whole project I was simply the scriber for the class. 

Here is how the project unfolded:

A student shared her idea & what had happened in parts of Texas and other students said they wanted to help too.


The students commented that they didn't know anyone specifically in Houston.


I shared with them that there are some organizations like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. that help raise money & donations for people in need.  As a class we researched the different sites to see what kind of items they accepted. 

We talked about needs vs wants. Which is why certain organizations ask for certain types of items.


The class wrote an e-mail asking for permission to do this type of project.


Behind the scenes: I found out some logistical things to make this happen. There was already a project that had been started by our PTA to collect the necessities for Hurricane Harvey flood victims for the week so I asked if we could partner with them. Then I kept calling groups to see who could benefit from stuffed animals since it was a unique item that most organizations don't accept. 


Side note: One of my family friends was helping me in calling organizations. When she called the Red Cross & told them about the project my students had come up the Red Cross volunteer said she was so sorry she couldn't take the items but wanted to help the students so she proceeded to pray on the phone that the idea the sweet students had would come to fruition to help comfort those children in need. So incredibly kind.


They got a letter back (I cannot tell you how exciting this was for them!)
To partner with our PTA, the students spoke on the morning announcements telling the campus about the collection each morning this week.


Some more behind the scenes happenings: I found out the stuffed animals had to be new. I didn't want to burden parents with having to go do "another errand" or feeling like they had to do something at all. So I wrote an e-mail to the parents telling them about this project & how it came to be. The responses I received were amazing! The parents loved this and really wanted to help make it happen. So I told them that if they wanted their child to participate, we could all do a trip to the local toy store and purchase some stuffed animals. They were so generous & all wanted to participate. 


While the students were purchasing their stuffed animals, they had to decide if they wanted to buy several smaller ones to help comfort more kids or one bigger one, they learned about "change" and why they get money back after making a purchase, they commented about how "warm & fuzzy" they felt after buying the animal & putting it in a bag for animals to give to children. As a class, they collected FIFTY animals give help comfort other children! 


While my end goal was for the children to take a trip to a shelter to  help pass out the stuffed animals, I learned that the shelters prefer to not have a ton of random people showing up with stuff and that it is actually more helpful to give items to a specific organization to sort everything & deliver. I'm so thankful that Austin Disaster Relief was able to take the stuffed animals and pass them out to children at the shelters to comfort them.  

It was such an amazing project and I cannot get over how impressed I am with this class! What sweet first graders to come up with these ideas totally on their own, think of what needs to happen for their idea to occur, and then work to make it happen! 

With this group of first graders as our future, I know we are in good hands!