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Room 5 Cares

REACH Grant Proposal submitted by Banksville Elementary School.

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PSLA Special Education Application

Name of School: Banksville Elementary School
Name of School District: Pittsburgh
Name of School District Business Manager: Mr. Joseph Poerio
Name of person submitting grant: Amy Cornelius Dembosky
Title of Project: Room 5 Cares!
# of Students participating: 40
Dates of project: 12/4/00 - 6/15/01

REACH Grant Proposal

Vision
'Room 5 Cares!' will enable 17 first grade students to experience learning through service to the Pittsburgh community. While my students are generally not affluent, one unifying factor is that they all have homes. By taking this into consideration, I believe that we have a project that all of the students can be a part of and feel good about.

Community Need
Even first grade students are aware of the problems of the homeless and the elderly. We will explore these needs through children's literature and discussions.

Project Design
'Room 5 Cares!' will involve a series of "book bags" that students will take home with them. Each book has a theme of hope, sharing, giving, working with and being kind to others. Students will read the book at home with their parents and siblings, create a written response to the book, and collaborate on a project. In-class instruction will involve writing, speaking, listening, and artistic projects about the books.

For example, our first book is" Fly Away Home" by Eve Bunting. This book focuses on the plight of one homeless family, while shedding a different kind of light on our curriculum theme Transportation. The book bag will include a wish book, where students can write their wishes for themselves, their families, their communities, and their world. At this time, students will be asked to contribute a new pair of socks to be donated to the homeless shelter. (It is important to note that socks are only a suggestion - students may designate an item that is more important to them for collection.) My students are always suggesting ideas for contributions to the homeless shelter such as posters and placemats, and these activities will be part of our program also.

Participant Roles
My 17 first grade students will participate in the program, and as they choose, we will include other classes in our projects and collection. Typically, our school's other first grade class participates in whatever project we do. In the past, we have extended activities to the whole school.

Parents will be an important part of Room 5 Cares!'. Without parental support, our projects cannot be successful. I am very fortunate to have wonderful parents to work with; they assist in preparing materials, work in the classroom, and chaperone field trips. Most importantly, they provide me with guidance regarding the projects. While I have a professional background, I do not have children of my own. The parents I work with are able to give me advice about the direction and appropriateness of the activities.

As the teacher, I will coordinate the book bags. I will coordinate the timing of each bag to support our school's curriculum whenever possible. For example, we might work on The Giving Tree in the spring as we begin our unit on New Plants. Our senior citizen partners from the nursing home may be able to visit us at our school as part of our gardening port. Our garden is really a community garden, seen by all travelers on Carnahan Road. A cooperative time would be a great opportunity for first grade students to learn from older adults. Cookies and punch would be served at the end of the day to give children and adults an opportunity to talk and get to know each other better. Projects with the older adults could continue throughout the year as students made cards and decorations for various holidays. Last year, we were treated to cards from our older friends!

I will also be responsible for leading class discussions, guiding students in their choices of activities, and planning logistics of book orders, book bags, and field trips.

Finally, we have agency representatives who come and meet with our students and guide our projects. They are responsible for coordinating distribution of donated supplies, recognizing the contributions made, and logistics on their end of any field trips.

Partnerships
Our contact from Light of Life has been very willing to come to our school and talk to our students about the shelter. He has a wonderful way of helping the children to see how their donations and gifts impact the families served by the agency. We have been in contact this year and would like to continue and add to our partnership. We also have a contact at the nursing home. She is the activities director and helps to coordinate visits between the children and the older adults. Other partnerships will be formed depending on need. Student input is very important to 'Room 5 Cares!', and the children may indeed come up with another type of agency that they would like to partner and share with.

School-To-Work
This project will encompass school-to-work by allowing students to talk to a wide variety of people about their jobs, particularly in the social service fields. Room 5 Cares! also promotes job readiness foundation skills like problem solving, teamwork and cooperation, decision making, giving and understanding of oral directions, and creative thinking. Every student in Room 5 will be given opportunities to develop these skills. Problem solving, decision making, and creative thinking will be important parts of monthly event planning. Students will have to decide what to collect, how to collect it, how to inform the school community, how to tally totals, and how to summarize the data. The children will have to work together in teams to sort out the goods we collect while following procedures.

Academic Connection
Communications and mathematics skills will be strengthened by 'Room 5 Cares!'. Students will use both oral and written communication skills when "advertising" and giving status reports to the school community on our current projects. They will read when book bags come, and write to respond to those books. Mathematics skills will be reinforced when counting and tallying goods which have been donated. Students will also count, sort, and wrap change when pennies are donated for a penny drive and change is collected in the A Chair for My Mother book bag. (Counting money is a skill that receives much attention in first grade, while also being one of the most difficult for students to master.)

The skills emphasized by 'Room 5 Cares!' will fit nicely with our district's academic standards. For example, Communications Standard 4 reads :I can write for many different reasons". AS mentioned in this proposal, students will have many opportunities to write to achieve different goals. Another particularly relevant standard is number 8: "I can tell others about what I learned". We will be telling our school community about what we learned in many different ways.

Reflection will be incorporated throughout the project in a variety of ways. Students will frequently write and speak about their thoughts and experiences. They are used to meeting in small groups, and will continue to do so throughout 'Room 5 Cares!' Also, our school has a fine arts emphasis, so we will be able to reflect through artistic expression: music, dance, and art. We have performances and displays like Fine Arts Night where students will be bale to share their learning. I am using the project approach in my classroom to teach my students about the community. We are currently building models of communities using recycled materials, and may build another project in the future relevant to Room 5 Cares!

SCANS foundation skills addressed by 'Room 5 Cares!' include many of the previously mentioned ones (reading, listening, math) as well as social skills, integrity, and responsibility. Students cannot help but incorporate these skills into their daily lives when given opportunities to practice them through service to others. I want my students to leave first grade feeling like a part of the larger world, understanding that anything they can do, no matter how small, can help to make the world a better place.

Youth Voice
I consider my classroom a child-centered classroom, where students have a great deal of input into what they work on and how they work on it. In fact, at times I think my students have too much input! We regularly hold meetings to discuss pertinent topics (what materials we need to build our community; what to do if someone calls you a nasty name), and 'Room 5 Cares!' will have recorders for their group, sharing our status at our school's large group meeting, promoting our collections, choosing what to collect, and tabulating our results.


Proposed Budget
Grant Support

A Chair for My Mother,
by Vera B. Williams 17 copies @ $5.35 $90.95

Fly Away Home,
By Eve Bunting 17 copies @ $5.35 $90.95

The Giving Tree,
By Shel Silverstein 17 copies @ $12.76 $216.92
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Sub-total - books $398.82

Transportation Subtotal $110.00

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Total for Room 5 Cares! $508.82

Total grant amount $500.00

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Total school support $8.82

In-Kind Support
Transportation of nursing home residents will be donated by nursing home. Refreshments for gardening day will be donated by Banksville families and staff. Book bags, learning activities, publicity, and any budget overruns will be covered by grantee. Art supplies will be provided by Banksville Elementary and the grantee.

Budget Narrative
Grant funds for Room 5 Cares! will be used to provide each student with a lasting reminder of his/her involvement in 'Room 5 Cares!' It is hoped that this reminder will influence the children as they grow up, causing them to be caring, civic-minded individuals.

Every effort will be made to find the books at the lowest price possible while avoiding shipping and handling costs. Unfortunately, book prices have increased just in the last year, and for this reason, fewer books are planned for the program at this time.