Jaden's recommendation from Ms. Doetzel

To Whom It May Concern,

It was an extreme pleasure having Jayden help out in the grade one classroom. Jayden is a polite, kind and very friendly student who was always eager to work with the grade one students. He willingly took on any task or responsibility with enthusiasm.

Jayden often worked one-on-one with students or in small groups. He was responsible for helping students with their sight words; reading with students; working on writing; as well as assisting the teacher with math lessons. Jayden always went above and beyond the teacher’s expectations while working with the grade one students. He also encouraged the students to do their best work and complimented them for their effort. Not only was Jayden a great role model for all the grade one students but he also behaved very professionally throughout.

It was a great privilege getting to know Jayden and having him work in the grade one classroom. I look forward to watching Jayden grow as a student of Marshall School and I am positive we will see many more great accomplishments from Jayden in the future.

Sincerely,

Miss. Lisa Doetzel

Mrs Doetzel's (grade 1) recommendation for Shae-Lynn

To Whom It May Concern,

It was an extreme pleasure having Shae-Lynn help out in the grade one classroom. Shae-Lynn is a polite, kind and very friendly student who was always eager to work with the grade one students. She built great relationships with the students she worked with and in return the students trusted Shae-Lynn and were excited to work with her. Shae-Lynn willingly took on any task or responsibility with enthusiasm and purpose.

Shae-Lynn often worked one-on-one with students or in small groups. She was responsible for helping students with their sight words; reading with students; working on writing; as well as assisting the teacher with math lessons. Shae-Lynn always went above and beyond the teacher’s expectations while working with the grade one students. She also encouraged the students to do their best work and complimented them for their effort. Not only was Shae-Lynn a great role model for all the grade one students but she also behaved very professionally throughout her volunteering.

It was a great privilege getting to know Shae-Lynn and having her work in the grade one classroom. I look forward to watching Shae-Lynn grow as a student of Marshall School and I am positive we will see many more great accomplishments from Shae-Lynn in the future. The grade one class will remember all of the great memories we shared with Shae-Lynn throughout the school year.

Sincerely,

Miss. Lisa Doetzel

Community Garden

Our last CSL project of the year is the big one. Among the many initiatives we've undertaken, we've done 2 community parties, cleaned up our campus, worked hard in classrooms with younger kids all over the school all year and been of assistance every time we were asked, often of our own volition. We have been recognized by our school division and community agencies and businesses. This one, however, is that for which Marshall School Grade 7 CSL class of 2010-2011 may be most fondly remembered. With the help of a number of parents and some teachers and their spouses, and a wonderful donation by Synergy Credit Union, we built the big flower boxes in that will become the brand new Marshall community garden. The town will deliver the soil and the peat moss tomorrow. The plants, through the generosity of Green Jay Nurseries will arrive shortly thereafter and we will plant them. It's a legacy project: succeeding classes will have the chance to add a feature or two of their own. The class ahead of us, Mrs. McKerchar's grade 8/9 kids,  is considering adding some shade trees already. Pretty cool.

Cary is still struggling, too

Community Service Learning is a fun class to be a part of. Some stuff you might do is pick weeds, write a serialized novel for the school newspaper (my favourite one), read to little kids, or help the librarian with stuff. This stuff will surprise your parents. This stuff will let you use metacognition, which means think about your thinking. When I leave this school I would liked to be remembered for as long as possible.

Morghan's understanding is evolving

The difference between Community Service Learning and community service is that is in Community Service Learning it is a subject that you do in school and it teaches you how to accomplish goals that you that you haven't yet accomplished. With community service you will help out with your community without getting paid for what you are helping out with but you do get lots of people happy for what you do in your community. With Community Service Learning goals can be accomplished. But you can also accomplish goals in community service as well. In community service people don't get taught how to do community service they just like to participate in community service.
Morghan

This is a great project in which you are involved. You will learn a great deal about your community and yourselves. I commend you and your teachers for taking this step to making everyone's world a better place. You are an inspiration to other students.

Mrs. Deb MacClean

Lashburn HS

Thank you, Becky

Love reading about what you are up to with those impressionable 12 year olds....creating responsible young adults through programs like this one, wow... Thank you for caring so much about the children you teach, we all benefit when teachers make a difference in the lives of children
Becky Labbe
Lloydminster AB

Emily Compares and Contrasts

Community Service Learning and community service are two different topics. They are the same in some ways. They both help their communities but they also have a lot of differences. Some differences are in Community Service Learning(CSL) you get to do metacognition about the work you have done tfor others, but in community service(CS) you probably won't. Other elements in CSL is you get to pick what you do with you class, you get help other people, your teacher will help you through it, kids get to learn how to help his/her community, and you also get to learn everything about the task you are doing. CSL and CS are different because in CS you just do your task and don't reflect on what you have done and what you have learned. You have to pick a task by yourself, and you have to learn about it by yourself. Adults usually do CS and not kids. As you can see CSL and CS are amazing things to do but they are very different.

... how you can change a place...

Some things that are different between community service and Community Service Learning is community service you can do whenever you want but with Community Service Learning you have to do it because it is part of the curriculum. In regular community service you do not get much help but you do in Community Service Learning. You get graded on Community Service Learning but you don't in community service. In community Service Learning you are learning on how you can change a place by helping you community but in community service you should already know.

Sidney and doing the right thing

At Marshall School, Community Service Learning is not an add-on or a diversion for the curriculum. It is helping us with our character education. It is not something that we get marked on but it is in the form of project. CSL is the kind learning that helps us with our thinking about right choices and doing things not just because you can but because it is right.

Community Service Learning shows citizenship, integrity and so much more. You never regret the work you do helping in your community, and I mean never. Maybe it doesn't always give you that warm fuzzy feeling inside but it does feel nice when you know you did the right thing.

You can tell that Weezie is really thinking about the work she's done

In Community Service Learning, with out being told, you serve your community. You learn how it feels to be in a community that gives back to you. If you live in a community that’s willing to take a step back for each other and give people opportunities then you all are truly a community.

Leadership Academy Meets CSL

Northwest School Division, under the tutelage of Mr. Don Wheler, has a legendary leadership program for its senior students. Kids must apply and only a small percentage of students are accepted. Marshall School for a number of reasons has never had one of our graduates accepted to the program. The CSL work the grade7s at Marshall are doing has come to the attention of the esteemed Mr. Wheler. The Academy will meet this week at our school and Don has invited Marshall's grade Marshall's 7s to participate. As you might expect anticipation is high in our class. The kids have learned that if you work hard at doing good and doing well, good things generally follow. I asked the kids to write a short piece describing CSL to the Leadership Academy. I think you can see their evolving understanding, even if sometimes we are reminded that they are only 12 years-old.
MH

AJ's Metacognition

Community Service Learning

Community Service Learning is truly quite fun in eyes of the people who participate in it, and I am one of those people. I truly enjoy helping people. Some CSL projects we do is picking weeds, help the elderly, making a community garden, cleaning ditches, and fixing things. After we do some of the stuff listed we do metacognition (think about our thinking) and write sort of like this. Community Service Learning also teaches you citizenship and manners.

Proposal for grade 3 Teacher

January 2011

Marshall School, Grade 7

Community Service Learning Proposal

Dear Mrs. S... ,

When we come to your class to help you during our Service Ed classes, we would be glad to offer to work with the students with their writing and L.A assignments. We would like to teach some of their writing and L.A classes with your approval. Please except us for doing this

This is how we think we could make it work. We could come to you after class and ask for homework from you, so we know what you are teaching your students.

If you agree this is what we think we would need from you.

-L.A or writing curriculum

-Give us something to work on so we have an idea of what you are teaching your students

-Please support us

-Consider we teach a class together

We would love to help you in our Service Ed classes and help you and your students in L.A and writing.

Sincerely,

Curtis

Morghan

Proposal to the grade 1 teacher

January 2011

Marshall School, Grade 7

Community Service learning Proposal

Dear Mrs.D... ,

Tyrell and I would like to get more involved with your students academics by helping them spell and improving their reading skills. Our areas of expertise are in these two categories.

For the spelling activity we would like to use www.aaaspell.com on the computer. For reading we would like to read the age appropriate books chosen for your class.

If you approve of this, the things we will need from you are the following:

· Approve the books chosen

· Approve of the spelling website: www.aaaspell.com

· We need to know the days and periods that we can make this happen

Tyrell and I would love to read and spell with your students for our Community Service Learning class. We hope this will be a lot of fun!

Tyrell

Shae-Lynn

Lovers of Science

January 2011

Marshall School, Grade 7

Community Service Learning Proposal

Dear Mrs.W...

As your service learning students we would to offer our service in more of your grade 4/5 science classes. Also we would like to be more involved with the class by doing some of the following:

-Teaching a Lesson

-Taking a group out to work with then

-Giving examples or being an example

If you agree to these proposals we would like to sit down with you and Mr.Horgan to discuss our schedule. We would also like to see the grade 4/5 curriculum if you agree to our second offer so we could get ready for a lesson.

Thank you for letting us be in your class and we hope you will consider our offers.

Sincerely,

Emily T.

Sidney

January 2011

Marshall School, grade 7

Community Service Learning Proposal

Dear Mrs. S....

We are both so happy and glad that we are working in your classroom; we have enjoyed working with you. We think have not been working hard enough and taking enough responsibility in the kindergartener?s academics.

This is how we would like to propose our ideas, practice spelling out side of the classroom, we will teach the class one new word every week and spend 5 minutes on the word every class we have that week, we will teach a lesson to the kindergartens the lesson that you have assigned for them.

This is what we would need from you.

· Spelling

· Teaching the lesson to the kids and giving you free time to get ready for the next day (if needed)

· Teach them a new word each week

We will give you a schedule of the days we can help you and when ever we have a free class we will let u know in advance.

If you agree with this we will be happy to have a talk with you and our teacher Mr.Horgan

Louisa

Koryssa

Up a Notch

My students have been doing work with classroom teachers all over our school.  Most of their help has been in the area we call "nuts and bolts": decorate a door, take down decorations.  A few kids have ventured into the academic areas with their cooperating teachers help. The next step in our reaching out to other teachers is to become more proficient as an academic helper.
The kids have learned to write business letters (informal ones) and have compose proposals to the teachers following the following format.
Salutation
Paragraph 1: "I propose that I/we would like to be more active in classroom academics, especially in the area of .... (proposal)
P 2:  These are the things I think I need to do to be sucsessful... (strategeies)
P3: If you agree, I will need your help in the following ways... (assistance/supervision/accountability)
P4: Summation
Closing/Signature
I asked them to anticipate questions the teacher may have about the proposal and to try to answer those questions in the letter.  Judge how they did.
MHH