After conducting a needs assessment for a local animal shelter in their community, with the guidance of the teacher, learners will plan, advertise for, and collect specific items to donate to a shelter.

Anticipatory Set:
Show the learners a photograph or a picture from a magazine or poster of a dog or a cat. Ask the learners to describe the animal (big, tall, brown, long hair, short hair), describe what they think the animal is doing, and give details about the surroundings of the animal. Tell the students that you are going to read a book with lots of descriptions and details.

• Read the book, Let’s Get a Pup, Said Kate, by Bob Graha
• On the board or chart paper, ask the learners to give examples of describing words from the book (i.e., small, cute, big, sniffers, sleepers, wire-haired, short haired, scratchers, leapers, snarlers, growlers, biters, fighters, happy, sad, “take me” dogs, chew-it-up and spit-it-out-at-you dogs).
• Ask the group to describe the dog that finally captured the heart of the family. (Dave is little, energetic, cute, and brand-new.)
• What did the learners notice about where the family found Dave?  Was he alone in a kennel?  Did they notice certain things in the Animal Center? (Chain fences, locks on doors, one bowl or no bowl in pen, man with broom and dust pan and lots of keys, some dogs with a bone, no fancy beds, etc.)
• Allow a discussion to emerge about your local animal shelter. (If your location doesn’t have a shelter, discuss what the learners know about animal shelters in general.) Guide the discussion by using some of the following questions: Has anyone been to an animal shelter? What does it look like? Why do you think some pets live in a shelter and don’t have a home of their own?  Do the animals in a shelter have needs and wants too? Would you like to help the animals in a shelter who don’t have their own home and family? What could our class do to help provide for the animal’s needs and wants?
• Allow all possible suggestions for helping the shelter. Invite someone from a local shelter to come to the class and talk about the needs of the shelter. If a shelter representative is unable to visit, read the book, Before You Were Mine, by Maribeth Boelts.)
• Discuss with the class why the adoption of a pet is beneficial to the animals and to the community. (Adopting a pet from a shelter makes space for other animals in need and it allows the pet to be cared for in a loving family environment.) Invite learners to share any experiences that they have had visiting the animal shelter or adopting a pet.
• Create a list of needs/wants for the shelter.  Help the learners come to consensus about what item(s) they want to collect to donate to the shelter. They should prioritize their list and agree as a class which items they will collect.
• Arrange learners in groups. Give them the supplies needed to create posters that convey the need to assist animal shelters and asking for the specific items that they have decided to collect for donation to the shelter. (This would be a good opportunity to involve older learners, allowing them to mentor and assist the younger learners in creating the posters.)
• Send notes home to families and include a message to families in the school newsletter, newspaper, daily announcement sheets, etc.) See Attachment One: Sample Family Letter and Announcement
• Help students develop a plan for collecting and organizing the donated items.
  
  After the Collection is Complete
• If possible have the class visit the shelter to donate the items or invite a representative from the shelter to come to the school to collect the items from the class.
• Reflection: Give each student a cut-out of a happy face and a sad face, or ask the students to draw and cut out the two faces. (Faces can be mounted on popsicle sticks, if desired.) Tell the students that they are going to be asked to “vote” by holding up one of their two faces. The happy face means “Yes” or that they felt happy, and the sad face means “No” or they felt sad. Tell the students they can hold up both faces if they are unsure of their answer/or if they feel that their answer could be both a happy face and a sad face. Use these questions as a catalyst for discussing student learning and the service experience.
  Sample Questions:
  1. Do you think you learned new things about animals and their care?
  2. Did you like learning about animal welfare?
  3. How did you feel about collecting and donating items to the animal shelter?
  4. How do you think the animal shelter workers and the animals feel about receiving the items?
  5. How do you think your family feels about what you did for the shelter? 
  6. How would you feel about helping the shelter again?
  7. Do you think our community is a better place because of what you know and did for the animals?
• Optional: As the students vote, create a graph on a display board to capture their responses to each of the questions.  Discuss and analyze the data shown on the graph with the class.
   

Interactive Parent / Student Homework:
See Attachment One: Sample Family Letter and Announcement

Boelts, Meribeth. Before You Were Mine. 2007. The Penguin Group. New York, New York.  ISBN: 978-0-399-24526-8

Graham, Bob. Let’s get a Pup, Said Kate. 2003. Candlewick. ISBN:0763621935

ASPCA® Web site Home page
http://www.aspca.org

 Learning to Give Home Page:
www.learningtogive.org