These "LEAGUE Learning Links” provide ten quick and easy 5-minute mini-lessons to help promote The LEAGUE vision and scheduled events in your classroom. You can choose from among these mini-lessons and use as many of them as you would like and in whatever order best meets your needs and the interest of your students. The purpose of these mini-lessons is to provide a deeper understanding of philanthropy (the giving of ones, time, talents, and treasures for the common good) and to promote those philanthropic acts that have been identified as supporting The LEAGUE events. These mini-lessons will also help ensure a deeper understanding of character traits, civic engagement, and promote student leadership. It is recommended that students be encouraged to play as much of a role as is possible and appropriate in presenting these lessons to their classmates.

1. READ: Bug School had a very good soccer team. Michael Spider and Carlos Caterpillar were both good at kicking because they had so many feet. Rory Fly didn’t have as many legs, but she could see really well. She always knew where the ball was. Brenda Beetle was really good at hitting the ball with her hard shell. Gordon Flea was so small he could easily weave between the other players. And if the ball started to go flat, there always was Misty the mosquito. She could put some air back in the ball. Together they made a good team.
   
   DISCUSS: Is anyone good at everything? Why is it important that we help each other? During our Earth Day Event how can we be a good team?
2. READ: Gail’s uncle Ben had a big garden in his backyard. One day, Gail asked Uncle Ben if she could plant something in his garden. She promised to take care of her plants. Uncle Ben was happy that she wanted to do this.
   
   Gail decided to plant yellow beans. They were her favorite vegetable. Gail planted her seeds. She came two times a week to her uncle’s garden. She watered the plants and pulled away the weeds. Each week, she dug in the ground to see how the plants were growing. When green shoots finally showed above the ground, Gail pulled them up to check on the roots. Then she replanted them. When it was time to pick the beans, Gail had no beans to pick. She felt sad. She asked Uncle Ben, “Why don’t my plants have beans like yours?”
   
   Uncle Ben told her, “There is a time to help nature and a time to leave it alone.”
   
   DISCUSS: What do you think Gail’s uncle meant when he said, ”There is a time to help nature and a time to leave it alone”? What are we doing to help nature during our Earth Day Event? What are we doing to leave nature alone? What do you think we will “grow” as a result of our Earth Day Event project?
3. READ: We had just finished one of our Earth Day projects. We picked up the trash in our school’s large courtyard. I felt pretty proud. The courtyard looked really neat and clean. Walking back into school, I noticed one of the older students heading toward the courtyard. I sneaked a peek. I wanted to see if he’d notice how nice it looked. What I saw made me both angry and sad. Without even looking around, he tossed a candy wrapper on the ground and walked away. “Why?” I asked myself. “Why even try to make things look nice if people are going to mess things up again anyway?”
   
   DISCUSS: Have you ever felt the way the person telling this story did? Do you think someone could mess up our Earth Day Event? Why is it important to do what we plan to do anyway?
4. READ: Talk about little things creating big things! Did you know that just one tiny ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire fifty miles long? Often we are asked to do big things but we don’t think we can do it. We think we’re too little. We might even get scared. What if people laugh at us?
   
   DISCUSS: Just as a little gold can be stretched a long way; a little help on Earth Day will make a big difference. We all need to help as best we can. How can we tell this to people who feel they have little to offer?
5. READ: Eric’s friend Ramon loved to step on ants. Eric didn’t like it that Ramon did this. One day Eric told Ramon what his teacher had told the class. ”All insects are important to the environment. They all have jobs to do.” Ramon laughed and ran off to play with his other friends. Eric felt sad. But the very next day he overheard Ramon telling a friend. “Don’t step on bugs because they all have jobs to do.” Eric smiled to himself.
   
   DISCUSS: What are some things that people do to our environment that make you sad? During our Earth Day Event what can we do to show others how to help care for our environment?
6. READ: Amber’s class agreed to clean up the area in front of their school. They all felt it would look better. They had a lot of weeds to pull. While they were working, Amber noticed that Cody was pulling up some flowers by mistake. At first, she was angry at him for goofing around. Then she wondered if Cody didn’t know which plants were flowers and which were weeds. Because she often helped her uncle in his greenhouse, Amber knew flowers from weeds. She asked Cody if she could help. Cody seemed relieved to know what to do. They worked side by side after that.
   
   DISCUSS: How do you think Cody felt after Amber helped him? Why is it important to help each other during our Earth Day Event?
7. READ: Ian usually went along with what his friends were doing. Sometimes it worked out OK. Sometimes he wasn’t sure it was right. One day he and Jared were throwing stones at squirrels in his yard. His mother called out for him to stop. Later that night at the dinner table, Ian’s mother asked him, “Why were you throwing stones at the squirrels?”
   
   “Jared told me to!” Ian said.
   
   “Do you think it is kind to throw stones at animals? What if someone threw stones at your puppy? How would you feel about that?” his mother asked.
   
   Ian hung his head. “I’d tell them to stop doing that.”
   
   “Maybe the next time you see one of your friends doing something you know is wrong, you should let them know how you feel.” Mom said.
   
   DISCUSS: Our Earth Day Event is about taking care of our environment. What can we do if we see someone hurting our environment? Why is important to set a good example?
8. READ: Signs help us and keep us safe. Signs can warn us of danger or tell us what we should do; for example, Caution, Slippery When Wet, or Stop. Sometimes signs tell us what we should not to do; for example, Do Not Pass. Signs are important. Some people choose to ignore signs. That usually creates problems.
   
   DISCUSS: Signs like Do Not Litter and No Dumping tell us what not to do. Why do you think some people choose to ignore these signs? What can happen when people ignore these signs? What part of our Earth Day Event deals with the problems caused by people who do not obey signs?
9. READ: It was JJ’s birthday. His parents bought a piñata and filled it with candy. Everyone at the party tried to break the piñata. Pam finally broke it. Candy fell everywhere in the grass. All the guests ran to pick up lots of candy. JJ’s mother told everyone to put their candy wrappers and pieces of the broken piñata in the wastebasket. “If we make a mess, we need to help make things look nice and neat again,” she said. “That way it’s fun for everyone.”
   
   DISCUSS: Why is it important to clean up after we make a mess? Why would doing this be fun for everyone? What are we doing for Earth Day that will remind people to pick up their trash?
10. READ: Being clean is important. A bar of soap and warm water can wash away a lot of dirt and germs. When we’re clean we look and feel better too. Did you know that there are ways we can help clean around our home, school, and neighborhood? We can pull weeds and mow lawns. We can plant flowers and sweep sidewalks. We can rake leaves and pick up trash. These are just a few of the things we can do.
    
    DISCUSS: Why is having a clean environment so important? What are we doing during our Earth Day Event to help clean up our environment? How do you think our Event will help our earth look and feel better too?

Reflection plays a very important role in promoting student learning. The following suggested activities are ways to help students reflect on their learning after they have participated in a service event.  Choose one or more of the activities most appropriate to the service event and your students.

ACTIVITY ONE:
Have the students cut out a snowflake. Remind students that no two snowflakes are alike, so all snowflake designs will be acceptable. Have the students, using a crayon or marker; write a word on their snowflake that represents how they felt while participating in the Event activity.  When each student has completed placing their “feeling” word on their snowflake, have them each share their word with the class. After everyone has had an opportunity to share, place all the snowflakes on display to simulate a snowman and titled the display e.g. “Building Together”, “A Magical Snowman”, etc. Share that just as it takes lots of snow flakes to build a snowman it takes a lot of helping hands to make a LEAGUE Event a success.

ACTIVITY TWO:
Give the students an 8 ½” x 11”-sheet of multi-colored construction paper, a pair scissors, a glue stick/paste and a variety of old magazines and newspapers.  Tell them that they will have a designated amount of time to go through these magazines and newspapers to cut out pictures and /or words that could be used to describe their involvement in the recent Event.  Once they have cut out pictures or words, tell them to place their name somewhere on the construction paper and then glue the pictures and/or words they cut out to the construction paper being careful not to cover up their name.  Display these in the classroom and if time allows have each student share the contents of his or her collage with the rest of the class.

ACTIVITY THREE:
Give each student two pop sickle sticks and a cut out of a happy face and a sad face. Have them attach/glue each face to one end of each of the pop sickle sticks.  Tell the students that they are going to be asked to “vote” on a series of questions and they can register their “vote” by holding up one of their two faces.  (NOTE: You may choose to add that the students 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.)

Questions:

1. How did you first feel about doing this Event?
2. How did you feel while you were doing this Event?
3. How did you feel after the Event was over?
4. How do you think what you did made other people feel? 
5. How do you think the ‘face of our world’ would look if no one did these things?
6. How do you think the ‘face of our world’ would look if everyone was giving and sharing?

From the student’s votes create a one-dimensional block graph on a display board or use actual building blocks to show how students responded to each of the questions.  Discuss what the graph would tell someone who might be looking at it for information about the Event.

ACTIVITY FOUR:
Arrange the class into four groups. Have one group mime some of the activities they actually did during the Event, while the rest of the class tries to guess the activities.  Have the second group mime how they felt while being involved/working in the Event, while the rest of the class tries to guess their feelings.  Have the third group mime how they would feel if they were the ones being helped/received the cards, etc., while the rest of the class tries to guess their feelings.  And finally, have the fourth group mime different activities they might be able to do the next time that would also be helpful, while the rest of the class tries to guess the activities.  Discuss with the class how well they thought they did in identifying the various mimes and what they learned from doing this activity.