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All too often, when something needs to be done, people race to say "not me!" Not us. We say "not not us!" because not only do we want to get involved, we like having discussions about double negatives, too. But that's a lesson for you to not not involve yourself in on another day.
This teaching guide is packed with double positive lessons on involvement and community service.
In this guide you will find
- an activity that has students give a presentation promoting community involvement.
- a variety of resources on how to find places to volunteer and get involved, including websites, books, and apps.
- discussion questions on what it means to be a good friend. (Listen up: it involves active listening.)
Our teaching guide won't build a better community by itself, but with it, you and your students will be off to a not not-great start. (And no more double negatives. Promise.)
DAY 1: UNDER ONE ROOF
Introduction
Today's lesson focuses on teaching students ways to get more involved at home. They will brainstorm some ideas (which will hopefully have some students realize that doing the dishes every now and then is actually normal for some of their classmates) and then play a fun game of charades to act these out.
Key Skills and Learning Objectives
- Consider a day-in-the-life of a parent.
- Identify ways to be more involved at home.
- Spend quality time with someone at home.
Homework
- Yesterday: Be.
- Today: Spend some quality time with someone who lives in your house. Start working on the chores checklist.
HELP, I NEED SOMEBODY
Materials Needed: Access to this video called "The Day in the Life of a Working Mother" and this video called "What It's Like to be a Young Parent;" enough index cards for the class and a hat of sorts
Estimated Time to Complete: 50 minutes
Do you ever wonder what it's like to actually be a parent? It may seem like daisies and roses, but it's probably a lot harder than you imagine. [Show the short video on what it's like to be a working mom listed under Materials.] You have to get up early, and do a lot of nagging, cooking, dressing, driving, and so on, plus you get very little rest or time to yourself. Imagine if all of a sudden you had no more time to yourself. What would that be like? What would you miss most? [Discuss with students.]
Watch this video on what it's like to be a teen parent. [Show second video.] What do these teens miss the most? Do you know any teen who's a parent? [Let students answer.] What jumps out from both the videos is that it's not easy being a parent—and on the flipside, as a child, you can make life harder or easier for your parents. Sure, being a parent has wonderful parts to it, but let's not pretend it's a cinch. Here's where you come in.
[Pass out index cards.] Brainstorm some ways you can make life easier for your parents by getting more involved at home. [Don't have students call these out; instead, get them to write one on an index card without showing anybody and collect them in a hat.]
Parents don't want to have to tell you what to do all the time. So what we're going to do now is guess at the chores everyone wrote down by playing a game of charades. [Divide the class into two teams and ask each team to send up a volunteer.] The volunteer from each team is going draw an index card from the hat and try to act it out as their team members guess what they're showing.
Here are the rules: Absolutely no sounds, and no pointing at letters you find around the class. You can hold up your fingers at the beginning to indicate how many words your card has, and you can also indicate which word you're acting out (one finger means "first word"). The first team to guess what the card says wins a point for their team. [Continue game until all the index cards have been guessed.]
[As the teacher, feel free to add some chores into the hat yourself to make it a bit more challenging for the students.]
Wrap-Up
By now you should have a good idea of ways you can help out around the home and be more involved. Did any of the ideas surprise you or inspire you? [End with a discussion and then send them off to start getting more involved at home.]
HOMEWORK
Today's homework is to spend some quality time with someone who lives in your house (sorry, the cat doesn't count). Think of something they would like to do (for example, if you mom hates watching football then inviting her to watch football with you might not be the best idea), and set it up. Maybe your dad wants help making dinner? Maybe your mom wants some help with the garden outside? Maybe your sister wants to drink a glass of chocolate milk with you and tell you about her day? Sometimes it's nice to leave the house and just go for a walk around the neighborhood. Whatever you decide to do, try to spend at least half an hour with your housemate and then reflect on the experience in your handout.
DISCUSSION AND ESSAY QUESTIONS
- Can you imagine spending a day in the life of one of your parents? What would that be like? What would be different from your own life?
- What kinds of things would make your parents' lives easier?
- Have you ever done something nice for a parent without being asked? What was that experience like?
- What ways do you like to be involved at home? What ways do you not like to be involved at home?
- What does quality time mean to you?
- How could you spend more quality time with each member of your household? (These can all be different.)
- Why do we even have chores?
- Do you think kids should have to do chores? Why or why not?
- Have you ever talked yourself into doing something you don't like but is a nice thing to do for someone else? How did you do it?
- Do you do any volunteer work in your community? Why do people volunteer?
