Maniac Monday: Service Learning Projects in the New Year

I’ve raved about this book Give a Goat by Jan West Schrock before. It shows how a class executed one of their service learning projects through Heifer International. If you want to check out the information about this book from my blog, you can find it under the Give a Goat post. I highly recommend this Tilbury House book to read to students or your children before taking on service learning projects.

Service learning projects excite me, which is why I decided to dedicate this Maniac Monday post to them. I’ve written extensively on the subject for Bright Hub, and I’ve shared those links below. You’ll be able to find a list of service learning projects and maybe even some spring service learning project ideas. The thing is that we all want to do some sort of service learning project during the holidays–in our classrooms, at church, or with our families. But as you’ve heard before, need is all year round; so, you may want to plan one of these projects in the spring when the weather starts turning nice, and the kids’ attention spans are almost null and void.

Why do I love service learning projects? I think it’s because I’m teaching so many different objectives with these projects from organization to following through with a commitment, from responsibility to reading and math skills. Plus, they just make me feel good when an entire class or family is working together toward a common goal. It’s hard to argue–it’s an awesome feeling!

Here are a couple books to use for a list of service learning projects:

Where can you find more spring service learning projects? Bright Hub is a great resource for K-12 teachers and special education teachers if you are not familiar with this website. They have lesson plans, study guides, parent tips, teacher tips, and general articles about education issues. I wrote some articles about service learning projects for them. You can click on the links and go right to the articles:

“Easy Service Learning Projects for Elementary Students” This article is a list of service learning projects for K-5. They could be modified for higher grades.

“Counting Money Lesson Plans: Using Service Learning Projects for Practice” This article discusses how you can use service learning projects to satisfy math objectives in your curriculum for younger students.

“Service Learning Projects for Gifted Students: A Series of Articles” This is a series of three articles about using service learning projects for gifted students. The series has a list of service learning projects as well as tips to keep gifted students motivated and ways to assess their progress.

Have you done any service learning projects with your students or your family? Share with us!