As I do every year, I introduced the charity change jar early in the year. The purpose of that jar is to show students it doesn't take much to be a giving person. Throughout the year, whenever a student would find some spare change they could bring it to school and add it to our jar. (With parental permission, of course!)
Once we had collected some money the students were told about a few different charities and then we did some persuasive writing to convince me and their classmates of where the money should go. In the end, the winner was The World Wildlife Fund.
Our class symbolically adopted a Snowy Owl from the WWF. As a thank-you, the WWF sent us our own plush Snowy Owl to keep in the classroom. We have named him Fluffy.
