Building Community Relationships

 We don’t live separately in this world. We are interconnected.

Youth can keep our older residents young and older people have wisdom that can help young people.”

 -Ted Gross, Stadium Place, Baltimore, MD 

In January, my kindergarten team and I reached out to our administration about setting up a community building partnership with a local senior living facility.  After we got the go-ahead, we went to Claremont Place and spoke to their activities director to see what we could do with the residents.  All of the employees we encountered were so thrilled and excited about this opportunity and we felt very welcome.

Claremont Place is about a mile from our school, so it is a walking field trip.  Along our walk, we pass a park, many our of students' homes, a high school, and a cemetery.  These local interests are discussed during our walk, along with addresses on houses, street names, and traffic signs.

Since we have three classes, one class goes each week.  My class was the first.  We went a couple of days before Valentine's Day.  The director had juice and snacks for the students to share with the residents. He also had a craft ready for us to complete.  Each resident and student received a white teddy bear with lots of designs on it.  They were given fabric markers to decorate their bears.

Before we started, the students sat down with residents at the various tables and the adults (me, parent volunteers, the directors) helped facilitate conversation.  We learned one resident was a kindergarten aide along time ago. Another couple originally came from Wales.  One resident told the students that when she was in kindergarten she didn't even know how to write her name!  The conversations were lively at some tables and quiet at others, but I feel in time, relationships will become stronger and more familiar.

The students got to take their bears home with them.  Last week, another class got to make cherry pies with the residents because it was National Cherry Pie Day.  The residents were so grateful for the students coming to visit them and our students were so delighted to take their learning outside the classroom and into their community.

The plan is to go one more time in March to visit for reading.  Then we will invite the residents to come watch our performance of the musical "The Wide Mouthed Frog" in May. Next year, we intend to continue this partnership with our new group of students earlier in the year.  Is there somewhere in your neighborhood where you and your students could implement something like this?

P.S. Our classes take several parent volunteers.  This is key to a successful walking field trip.  We also must complete and turn in a "Field Trip Request" form to the office manager and get approval three weeks ahead of time. This request lists the educational standards for this opportunity.  If you need help in this way to get started, please reach out: erin.grebel@omsd.net.

Here is some more insight: Edutopia, Edutopia 2, Research

Happy Teaching!

Erin Grebel