Students from Ms. Buschang and Mrs. McQuillan’s kindergarten classes display the mittens they collected. Submitted photo
Reading a book led to a community service project for two of the kindergarten classes at Lima Primary School around the holidays.
The kindergarteners in Ms. Buschang’s class and Mrs. McQuillan’s class read the book The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen. The book tells the story of a little girl who notices a little boy without mittens. The little girl knits him a pair of mittens and leaves them on a tree for him to find them.
After reading the book, the students and teachers talked about how some students do not have warm clothes for the winter, what it would feel like not to have mittens and how the students thought the boy felt after finding the mittens.
The students in the classes decided to collect mittens and hats to donate to local families in need with any leftover mittens going to students in the city of Rochester. The classes collected over 50 pairs of mittens to donate.
“It was a great community service project for the kindergarteners during the holidays and taught them that the holidays are about more than presents,” Buschang said. “More than half of the pairs of mittens went to families within the district and the rest went to students in Rochester. It was a great way to integrate state standards for social studies along with reading and community service. The kids knew the importance of why they were collecting the mittens. We are definitely thinking about exploring something like this again.”
