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Our Programs > In-School & After School Service-Learning Programs
Grow Involved Program

For Teachers
For Students

Children for Children’s Grow Involved! Classroom Kits include an easy-to-implement lesson plan and all of the materials needed for youth to conduct their own service project.

Curriculum Overview

Children for Children’s Grow Involved! Classroom Kits are designed to help teachers and service-learning coordinators incorporate youth service into schools and communities.

The Grow Involved! Classroom Kit curricula connects Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of service with science, social studies, character development, and literacy. Last year, over 20,000 3rd and 5th grade students participated in the Grow Involved! Classroom Program. This year, Children for Children will engage more than 40,000 students from kindergarten to eighth grade.

Each free Grow Involved! Classroom Kit includes a lesson plan and materials for a student-led service project. These kits meet New York Performance Standards, enhance core curricula, and contain resources and materials for teachers including an easy-to-implement lesson plan, materials for a classroom service project, and award-winning children’s books.



Children for Children and VOICES

This year, the Grow Involved! Classroom Kit is included in a VOICES Literature and Character Education guide, through a collaboration with Zaner Bloser. For educators and students, this shared guide means the opportunity not only to participate in the built-in Grow Involved! Classroom Kit, but also to take advantage of supplemental VOICES materials, into which Children for Children’s service lessons have been incorporated.

A typical lesson begins with a previously chosen VOICES book that highlights a particular character trait for that grade:

  • Kindergarten : It’s mine
  • 1st grade : Allies Basketball Dream
  • 2nd grade : Fly Away Home
  • 3rd grade : Rosa Parks
  • 4th grade : Librarian of Basra
  • 5th grade : Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
  • 6th grade : Number the Stars
  • 7th grade : Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
  • 8th grade : To Be a Slave
  • High School (9th-12th grade) : To Kill a Mockingbird

After reading the VOICES book, students then use knowledge gained and relate it to the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as his message of service. Finally, students are then ready to begin their service project after understanding its need and relevance to the subjects they have explored. For example, third grade students learn about the parts of a flower, grow them, and then donate them to groups or individuals of their choice.

Download the 3rd grade lesson plan, found in the VOICES Teacher Resource Guide.



Examples of Grow Involved! Service

  • Classrooms at PS 2M in Manhattan grew flowers and focused on their school community. Students selected school lunch servers, custodial staff, and a school nurse, as well as classroom aides, as recipients of their flowers. One third grader commented, “The nurse helps sick children and that is important. I wanted her to feel important.”
  • Students at PS 123K in Queens also grew flowers but added a Valentine’s Day theme to their project. They made Valentine cards and delivered their flowers and cards to elderly community members at the Ridgewood-Bushwick center on Valentine's Day.



Teacher Feedback

  • Of the teacher evaluations received in 2007, 64.4% stated that this was their first time organizing a community service project.
  • 84.4% replied that they will continue to integrate service-learning into their curriculum.
  • “I loved the whole process of planting, taking their pictures, and watching the flowers grow. The students learned so much. Students learned how to make a difference in this world and that there are many ways of making their communities beautiful.” Teacher, PS 35Q
  • “Thank you for including us in your project. The children really gained a lot of information from the project. The community loved receiving the flowers and the children loved giving them out. Each morning they would race in to see whose flower was the tallest. It also turned into a wonderful science project.” Teacher, PS 90Q



How Do We Get It?

Grow Involved! Classroom Kit orders are taken in the fall of every year. For more information, email Aisha Lloyd at aisha@childrenforchildren.org or by phone at 212.850.4109.



For Teachers

2008 Grow Involved Classroom Kit Supplemental Activity Forms

Click on the following PDFs:



For Students

2008 Grow Involved Classroom Kit Student Reflection Forms


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