Word of the Month
MARCH

INITIATIVE: Solving problems and getting things done without being told
Vs. Doing only what you are told to do
EspanÕl - iniciativa

**Please review the following suggestions for content and appropriateness to your child and/or student/s**

Suggested Reading:
Jumanji
Johnny Appleseed
50 Simple Things Kids Can do to Save the Earth
Any Sherlock Holmes story
The Hunt for Red October
The story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Suggested Film:
The Wind and the Lion rated PG
Apollo 13 rated PG-13
The Hunt for Red October rated PG

Family Activity:

•  Recycle papers, cans glass, etc. in your home. This will give your children the chance to take positive actions. By giving them responsibility for collecting and bagging the recycled goods and then giving them the money they made by recycling those items reinforces behavior.

• Reward your children if they begin their chores before you have to prompt them.

•  When you have a problem where the solution must include your children, discuss the problem with them and ask them what they can do to help.

•  From time to time when you are going out to eat, ask your children to decide where to go.

•  Remember that initiative, like all guiding principles or character traits, is built step by step.

Class Activity:

•  Have students write a letter to the President  about an issue that is important to them. Teachers can suggest possibilities, but should let students pick what they want to write about. When you send it, include a letter of your own asking for a thank-you note to be sent to your class.
  
  President George W. Bush
  White House 2700 Penn. Ave.
  Washington D.C. 20501
  United States of America
  

•  Give your students a piece of blank paper and ask them to write or draw on it.

•  Give your students a piece of graph paper and ask them to use this week’s spelling list to make a crossword puzzle.

High School Activity:

•  Invite a member of the City Council or County Court House to talk with the class about ways they can become involved in the political process.

•  Invite a member of a local charity to talk to students about getting involved in charitable activities.

•  Discuss area problems and opportunities for students to get involved in solving them.

•  Assign groups of students a current political issue and have them contact political groups and governmental agencies to obtain information on the issue. Help them to identify possible sources of information if need be, otherwise, assign them to gather the information themselves.

•  Give your students a question that requires them to research why something happened. For example: “Why did Eisenhower send soldiers to Little Rock?” or “What was Tennyson describing in The Charge of the Light Brigade?”

Quotes:

There are two kinds of failures: The man who will do nothing he is told, and the man who will do nothing else.
-Perle Thompson 

Young children need to learn initiative, autonomy, industry, and competence before they learn that answers can be right or wrong.                                              
-David Elkind 

Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.
-Louis Brandeis 

Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion, and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work.                                       
-Anna Pavlova

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.
-Jesse Jackson 

A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. 
-Henrik Ibsen

As we seek answers, the answers appear.                                                                      
-Don Torres

Do every day all that can be done that day.                                       
-Wallace P. Wattles

Actions speak louder than words.                                                                                            
-Proverb

The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is that little extra.
-Anonymous

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
-Anonymous

The tragedy in life is not reaching your goal, but having no goal to reach.
- Benjamin E. Mays, 20th century American educator, president of Morehouse College

If you want something done right, do it yourself.
-Anonymous

The sleeping fox catches no poultry.
-Benjamin Franklin

Words are hollow, it is action that motivates men.
 -General George S. Patton

It may be true that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, but it is the people doing the pushing who deserves our attention.
-Violet Hemming

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
-Helen Keller

Perform a Random Act of Kindness Each Day