Pennies for Patients

Had you walked into our first grade classroom two weeks ago, you'd think you were walking into a high school biology class. You would be surprised at the sophistication of first grade minds! I launched a service-learning project to teach my students about compassion and our responsibility to the world community. I wanted to incorporate technology into the project, so I decided to create a video as the product medium. It would be written and illustrated entirely by our class and I would manage the filming. In this process, I learned how to use iMovie, but more importantly I gleaned insight into the potential and brilliance of 6 and 7 year olds. The content that my students developed was much more impressive than my abilities with the flip camera. I taught a lesson on cells and the body (at a first grade level, of course), in which students used paper cutouts to "build" the stages of cell growth and cancer. That afternoon, I asked students to create a movie script according to pictures from the morning's lesson. I based our shared writing activity around the question "What happened to the body? What does this picture represent?" Within 30 minutes, and with very minimal prompting from me, our class had developed a rather elaborate explanation of cancer. This is proof that we don't need to dumb down our content. Set the bar high...they will reach it!! Now that my little friends have a basic understanding of cancer, they are ready to support the cause and collect Pennies for Patients!