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| Giving Classrooms have been successful throughout the U.S., in affluent and struggling neighborhoods, with students at all age levels. |
 There is an endless variety of ways a creative teacher can use Charity Checks Giving Certificates in a Giving Classroom. Here are a few examples: |
Some teachers incorporate class projects, like this Giving Quilt created by elementary school students in Queens, NY.  |
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An 8th Grade interdisciplinary unit between Public Speaking and Human Development developed at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California. Students at this prestigious private school were prompted to consider three "big ideas": (1) You can use money to make a difference in the world. (2) There are many more valuable charities clamoring for money than any one person can select. (3) Each person uses real criteria to select one charity over others. Toward that end, students research and choose charities, then make presentations to persuade classmates to donate to their chosen causes. A social justice unit for Grade 8 developed at Roxbury Preparatory Academy near Boston, Massachusetts. During this three-month project, students created a list of social justice issues important to them. They investigated the problems and the ways in which solutions were already being pursued, then came up ways in which their actions could contribute to those solutions. As a culmination exercise, the students chose specific charities they felt deserved their Giving Certificates. A cross-curricular unit for Grades 6-7 developed and team-taught by Julia Mason Wasson (Grade 4) and Michael Rosner (Grade 5) of the Wonderland Elementary School in North Hollywood, California. Wasson and Rosner created a three-week project during which students research social problems which interest them, identify charities which offer programs to address those problems, investigate charities which make effective use of funds, and select the ones to which they will award their Giving Certificates. The goal is to have students follow their own interests, make independent decisions, and then make informed choices about where to make their donations. A grade 5 cross-curricular unit from Amanda Haver at Park Oaks Elementary School in California. Haver created a great interdisciplinary lesson plan about charity with a multitude of useful hand-outs and clear rubrics for evaluation. Her Giving Class covered a creative gamut: Her kids created individual giving type fonts, wrote acrostic poems about Giving, essays about a charity quote, and special charity folders. She also had them form groups and make presentations, and create a variety of graphs showing the types of charities the class chose. A whole wall was filled with the business letters the kids wrote to their charities explaining their thoughtful choices--truly a "GIVING CLASS." A cross-curricular unit for Grades 6-7 from Esther Lee at Kappa 2 (M.S. 317) in New York's East Harlem has students identify social problems in their community and research five nonprofits in their geographic area that sought solutions. The students write essays about their chosen issues and how those issues affect their community, country, and world. They also write poems that they read aloud. The students also designed and created advertising posters for the causes they cared about, and wrote business letters to their selected charities to accompany the Charity Checks and artwork. A computer elective unit for grades 6-8 from Ruth Kritz at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, Calif. Kritz's lesson plan engages students to use computers to research, create diagrams using the Inspiration visual learning tool, create a Powerpoint presentation about their selected charity, and write and spell check a business letter to the chosen charity on stationary designed by the student. The plan also explains how this lesson can work with ELD students. A literature unit for grades 9 and 10 from Ms. Burzynski at South Pasadena High School in South Pasadena, Calif. Burzynski developed a lesson plan, assessment, and standards correlation tying a Charity Checks unit into TALE OF TWO CITIES and writing good business letters. A pre-algebra lesson for seventh graders created by Laurel Gutierrez of the Valley View Middle School in Calif. Gutierrez made math come alive in the real world by using charities and percentages in her opening PODs (Problems of the Day ). She also created a list of the many charities within a five mile radius of her school, and had the kids calculate MMMR and create graphs with the data. They concluded by choosing their charities and writing letters to the charities as well as thank you letters to Charity Checks. A government lesson for 12th graders created by Peter Huyber of Santa Susana High School in Santa Ana, Calif. Huyber inspired his American Gov students to take thoughtful civic action by analsysing charites and then writing research papers before being hands-ons on philanthropists and sending money off. He created a five area chart for the students to use in their research and decision making. The students also each spoke to the class explaining why they chose the charity, before writing a letter to go to the charity with the Charity Check Giving Certificate. For some of the Seniors, it was the first time they had filled out a check. |
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"Charity Checks," "Giving Certificates," "The Giving Package," "Give the Joy of Giving," and "Teach the Joy of Giving" are trademarks, and "Charitable Literacy" and "Philanthropreneur" are servicemarks, of Charity Checks, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation. © 2000-2013 Charity Checks, Inc. |