Kensington Park Senior Living is proud to announce a partnership with Silver Creek Middle School and the Jewish Council for the Aging (JCA) – Interages program to build a better community together! We wish to develop a long-lasting partnership that will allow students and senior living residents to learn from each other and create a better and more peaceful world through intergenerational understanding and respect. Assisted Living residents from the Kensington Park Senior Living Community are eager to share their wisdom and life stories as well as learn from the Silver Creek Huskies. Weekly seminars will be facilitated by the JCA Program Coordinator to allow 6th grade student volunteers and Kensington Park residents to benefit from spending time together.
The JCA Heyman Interages® Center intergenerational programs have brought children and older adults together for 30 years. Since 1986, approximately 45,000 children and older adults in more than 100 schools and senior facilities have benefited from participation in our programs. Over the years hundreds of dedicated and caring older adult volunteers, who are the heart of Interages, have made a significant difference in the lives of children.
The SHARE (Students Help and Reach Elders) program enriches the lives of adult residents in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities by linking them with school groups (from pre-school through high school) for friendship and interactive fun activities. You may learn more about SHARE and other JCA programs from this website: https://www.accessjca.org/programs/interages/.
The Kensington Park Senior Living residents will be focusing on the elements of “community”. Throughout a 5-week period students and residents will connect with the assistance of a JCA Interages facilitator to build, understand and define community through different projects each week that may encompass writing, storytelling, and other hands-on activities. The culminating event will be a celebratory social hosted in the SCMS media center!
The students at Silver Creek Middle School are part of the International Baccalaureate (IB) which aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. The Middle Years Programme (MYP) supported at SCMS is developed to encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate lifelong learners.
Each year, students in the MYP engage in at least one collaboratively planned interdisciplinary unit that involves at least two subject groups.
The International Baccalaureate® (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) comprises eight subject groups:
- Language acquisition
- Language and literature
- Individuals and societies
- Sciences
- Mathematics
- Arts
- Physical and health education
- Design
The MYP aims to help students develop their personal understanding, their emerging sense of self and responsibility in their community. MYP students explore learning through 16 different key concepts. Concepts are big ideas that have relevance within specific disciplines and across subject areas. MYP students use concepts as a vehicle to inquire into issues and ideas of personal, local and global significance and examine knowledge holistically. Furthermore, students learn best when their learning experiences have context and are connected to their lives and their experience of the world. Using global contexts, MYP students develop an understanding of their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet through developmentally appropriate explorations of:
- identities and relationships
- personal and cultural identity
- orientations in space and time
- scientific and technical innovation
- fairness and development
- globalization and sustainability
Being geographical neighbors just happens to be a significant bonus to the partnership between the Silver Creek Huskies and the Kensington Park residents. We are thrilled at the collaboration of these minds to generate new and engaging ideas to support our local community thrive.
We will begin a 5-week program in April. This 5-week program will help students and residents build rapport and develop projects to support their learning competencies while engaging with seniors who have “been-there” and “done that”. Many thanks to Dr. Traci Townsend and MYP & SSL Coordinator Renee Hill of Silver Creek Middle School for their commitment and trust as we design a program to cultivate leadership and mentorship between both our communities. Also the contributions of the JCA program Bonnie Leko-Shapiro, Leah Bradley, and Janel Peters are paramount to the success of this partnership. Lastly, a big thank you to Woodlands team at Kensington Park and Tracy Clark, activity coordinator, for helping implement such an engaging community project.
To learn more about community events and activities that are offered to the public by Kensington Park, please call 301-946-7700 or email hflattery@kensingtonSL.com.