Students Change the World One Laugh at a Time!This is no laughing matter. Students can start to change the world one laugh at a time. It’s week two of The 365give Challenge. Once again the students participating in the pilot amazed everyone with their unique and creative ways to give every day. Bethany Lam Buckle is the teacher of the grade 5 class at Ecole Pauline Johnson that inspired her students to give this week. She came up with create ways to integrate the daily giving into her lesson plans. Class ingratiation included physical education, reading and presentation skills that brought everyone to tears of joy after 5 days of giving. Bethany shares her classes story of how they completed and fully embraced The 365give Challenge.Monday: We had our regular gym period at the end of the day and our class decided to continue with our planned “Capture the Flag” game… but with an environmental twist. Students were to pick up a piece of garbage from the playground every time they were caught, and they even made up a rule that you couldn’t just stay on your own side and not take a risk to avoid picking up garbage – you had to attempt for the flag at least once each minute. By the end of our game, the playground was spotless. Tuesday: The students decided they wanted to read to the kindergarten classes. Each student was paired up with 2 or 3 kindergarten students and were able to read 4 or 5 books in English and in French. They were very happy to have us in their class and the two kindergarten teachers were very thankful! Many of our students commented after the reading session that they felt happy, good, and generous. They even said that the “kindies” showed their appreciation by giving them hugs and high fives! Wednesday: The students brought in donations of money and pet food to donate to the BC-SPCA. We also announced that anyone else in the school wanting to contribute to our “give” would be appreciated as well. All of the donations totalled 116$! We thought that was pretty impressive since we only campaigned for one day! Thursday: Our class walked over to Hollyburn House Senior’s Centre. Every Thursday, there is a gentleman who leads a “Laughter Group”. He was sick this week, so we subbed in for him, bringing our jokes, songs, costumes, funny faces, and funny stories. We started off with a few jokes and riddles, followed by songs and tongue twisters. The seniors were very appreciative of our visit and our efforts to make them laugh. One lady in particular thought that the purpose of our visit was to come and ask her questions about HER, when she soon realized that all of the “questions” being asked were silly ones! So we made sure we had a few minutes at the end of the session for a little greet and chat. The students had lots of fun and were talking about the “Laughter Group” the whole time we walked back to the school! Friday: Our last day was kind of sad because the students didn’t want to stop. However, they had saved a good one for last! They brought in books from home that they no longer read to donate to a Vancouver school in need. They had chosen this “give” because they really wanted to help others who were less fortunate than themselves for one of their gives. We’ve had many discussions this year already about how fortunate we are to live where we do, to have what we have. Not everyone is as fortunate. They were very proud of their act of giving, especially because it would benefit children of the same age. Again, we invited the rest of the school to donate books as well. With our class, other donations, and even a donation from Mme Boulet’s library, we collected 2 big boxes full of books! Thanks 365give for giving us this opportunity, we are VERY excited about our second week!A very special thank you to Bethany and her class for making such a positive impact on the world. If you would like your school to join The 365give Challenge for the Fall 2014 please contact us and let us help your students change the world one day at a time. Share Article: