Sunday, September 27, 2009

VUSD Good News! Dictionaries from the Pride of Vista Lion's Club

VUSD GOOD NEWS—THE PRIDE of VISTA Lion’s Club Dictionary gifts

The wonderful members of the Vista Lion’s Club have been making the rounds of VUSD third grade classrooms. This fine volunteer group gives a free dictionary to each and every third grade student in our district. For many third graders this is their first dictionary. The children are thrilled to get them. The student dictionaries not only contain the usual words and definitions but also have a measurement conversion table, rulers, a US map, roman numerals, and a cursive alphabet.

It is the perfect gift for third graders because the California State Standards for third graders require the learning of dictionary skills. The third graders also have measurement standards in math and of course they first begin to learn to write in cursive.

One third grade teacher said, “It is wonderful when someone comes around who is nice and who cares about education and values the kids and wants to help instead of hinder. They (Pride of Vista) come every year. It makes you feel good about VUSD community and the good people who live here.”

The Pride of Vista also did a short ten minute presentation with the students showing them how to use the dictionary—guide words, extras in the back of the dictionary. The Lion’s club men and women were dressed in their blue vests. They passed out the dictionaries and asked the students to look up the word ‘volunteer’ and read the definition. They explained that they were volunteers and that the students could be volunteers as well whenever they helped someone else.

The students were ecstatic to get a gift. Many are so poor that getting gifts is a very rare event. Here are some of the things that student wrote in thank you notes to the Lion’s Club volunteers:

“I love my brand new dictionary. It is nice to know you would like to help third graders learn more things and spell hard words. I am going to try to memorize the dictionary. I am going to use it to help me with my homework.”

“Your club is really cute because of your cool outfits.” (refering to the blue vests)

“I never had a dictionary I am going to tell my little cousin because he is in kinder. I am going to keep my dictionary until I am in college.”

“I will protect it from my little sister because she cuts my stuff and my clothes. Thanks for showing us how to use it.”

It is nice to report good news about VUSD. The Pride of Vista Lion’s Club reminds us that there are many fine people in Vista and eastern Oceanside who care about our students and want to make our community better.

Thank you Pride of Vista Lion’s Club

1 comment:

Eric H. said...

Thank you for the kind words. It is one of the many public service projects that the Pride of Vista Lions Club sponsors. We believe that giving back to our community is the single most important action we can take part in. Lions is the largest public service group in the world.