A teacher found that a writing assignment sparks community service for kids, connecting them to a food bank and their community.
Third graders in Melissa Curran’s class at Moosup Elementary School began with writing, and ended with a full scale community project when they began to write an opinion piece which would try to persuade someone to buy a product. The product was the Fun Fluffy Stick, a big marshmallow covered in a choice of chocolate, sugar crystals, graham crackers, or pretzels.
They wrote a script describing the product. They targeted their classmates, friends, and family members. National Honor Society students helped them film a commercial. Orders came in, and they decided to sell the products in the community, including a senior center.
Math came pretty naturally with this project, and soon the students had topped last years sales, netting $1600 in profit. The original idea was to spend the money on class field trips, and give the money to the PTO.
But Curran wanted to reach out into the community. So half the money went to the PTO, and the other half went to purchase $821 worth of food for a local food bank.
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