Kingwood Rotary's 5th School Year of Sponsoring EarlyAct FirstKnight Character Education at Bear Branch Elementary is a SUCCESS!

 
    
2015-2016 was the 5th school year that Kingwood Rotary has financially sponsored the EarlyAct FirstKnight Character Education CURRICULUM  at Bear Branch Elementary.  This year, we honored 145 students and 5 teachers at our EAFK Knighting Ceremonies at Bear Branch Elementary for having high morals and ethics.  This is a curriculum-based character education program that empathizes the important of morals and ethics.  Please click here for a sample of our invitation to the event.
 
  
Kingwood Rotarians believe that investing in our children now, will help create great leaders in the future and this award winning character education program that teaches children strong morals and ethics, and why it is important to be a good person, is our largest Rotary project.  In the future, we hope to add other Kingwood elementary schools to our EarlyAct FirstKnight campuses.
 
"This EAFK project is Kingwood Rotary's largest service project, and we are so honored to work with the principal, staff, students and parents at Bear Branch Elementary", said Kingwood Rotarian Charlie Buscemi.  "The annual cost is around $6,500 each school year, and we look at it as a Legacy Project that will help strengthen the morals and ethics of our students.  Rotary District 5890 provides us with a District 5890 Grant, and we want to thank Alspaugh's Ace Hardware, Blue Tide Shipping, Sandi Nizzi with Realty Associates for being our EAFK Community Partners."  We would like to add additional elementary schools in Kingwood, but it takes a commitment from principals and the school PTA.
 
The video above was created by the Georgetown Rotary Club in Georgetown, Tx, and is the perfect example of what Kingwood Rotary Club's EAFK program is doing for student at Bear Branch Elementary.
 
In 2011, the Rotary Club of Kingwood started sponsoring the EarlyAct FirstKnight (EAFK) character education program at Bear Branch Elementary School.   EAFK was the first program of its kind in Humble School District, and Bear Branch Elementary is the only campus with this award winning program.  Why Bear Branch Elementary?  Because Principal Kakie Palmer thinks outside the box and likes to try new, innovative ideas to teach her students, and this award-winning EAFK program does just that.
 
EAFK is a character education program that teaches students why they need to build good character through regular, ten-minute lessons which is aligned with the Texas Education Agency's "Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills" (TEKS).  The EAFK curriculum is based upon Bloom's Taxonomy and utilizes the student's higher, critical thinking skills.
 
With Rotary’s Four Way Test at its core, the EAFK daily, 10-minute curriculum uses age-appropriate lesson plans that begin with the first day of Kindergarten and progress daily through the last day of 5th grade.
 
For the last four school years, over 620 students have been impacted by the EAFK program at Bear Branch Elementary and with this year's students, it now totals 765.
 
Themed around gallant knights and Rotarian values, EAFK teaches students how to become noble, service oriented people along with understanding why it is important for them to do so.  EAFK is amazingly effective, with participating schools crediting the program with significantly increased academic scores, decreased behavioral issues, more teaching time and happier teachers and parents.