The Unofficial Official Handbook of Good Deeds

Author: L.L. Buller and Boy Scouts of America

Illustrator: Lee 55

Grade levels: 3-5

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Summary: The Unofficial Official Handbook of Good Deeds is just what it claims to be, a book of more than 300 things you can do to make the world a better place. The book is not just a listing of good deeds but actually explains different things you can do to help your community. Some of the ones that stuck out to me the most were clean up your classroom, plant a tree, knit a hat or scarf for a homeless person, have a clean up party in the park, collect canned goods for a food back, meet with your principal and ask how you can help, adopt a highway, beach or park, recycle, and collect trash at school. The book explains how to go about these acts of kindness and why you should. For example, "Have a Clean-up Party in the Park" lists the different things you can do to help improve the park like planting flowers or picking up trash. The section explains how to first get permission by contact the parks department. It then explains what you will need to accomplish the various tasks such as rakes, seeds, or trash bags. Along with this, it explains why you should should clean up parks in your community by reminding students of their love for the play ground growing up.

Element six: This relates to element six because after a problem or social issue is identified, you can then use this book to help come up with ways of how to address it. Whether the issue is school involved or just something the students feel particularly passionate about this book can be used to help guide students to create change. Even if students are just looking for a way to create a positive change in their community book, this book will assist them in finding ways to go about that.

Activity: For the activity following this book, first see what the students wanted to take social action on. The issue addressed should either be prompted by the teacher for the students to come up with issues in their community or even an issue that came up during other class time that students were interested in. Once a issue is decided on, as a class go through this book observing the different options for addressing that issue. For example, if students are concerned with homelessness, knitting a hat or scarf for a homeless person or collecting mittens might be a good place to start. Theses lessons would probably be long and involved but the end result would certainly be a beneficial thing for students to get involved with. Another thing that might be a fun project with this book, would be just to have it the classroom and see how many of the deeds can be accomplished before the end of the school.