Say what?? In second grade guidance classes, we're discussing differences in appearance. "We all look different, but we're all good kids!" is the teaching focus, and we talk about the importance of two things: making the best of our own looks, smiling, and accepting ourselves, but we also discuss the importance of respecting other people, no matter what they look like. I've been letting the children vote on story books to read because I have so many good ones on this topic. Several classes have wanted to hear Little Sweet Potato, and as you would predict, the story characters are plants. The little sweet potato gets plowed out of its field by a tractor and ends up lost and lonely. As it courageously wanders on its way in search of home, it meets lots of fruits, vegetables, and flowers that are thriving in their own garden patches. Trying to find a place where it can belong, it asks over and over to join other neighborhoods, only to be rejected because of its bumpy lumpy looks. The plants are described by appearance rather than labeled, so the children have fun guessing what type of plant is being read about. Examples are flowers with velvety purple and yellow faces, fruits that look like shiny green marbles, sweet-smelling red flowers with soft petals and thorny branches, big shiny purple vegetables with satiny skin, and leafy bunches of green with thin orange spikes peeking out of the ground. Most have been easy for the students to figure out, although eggplants have only been known by a few. In one class, when we came to a page describing long green and white striped veggies with yellow flowers, I heard an eager voice call out, "Pickles!" Well since the plants in question were cucumbers, the cow-licked boy was definitely on the right track, and I had to give him points for knowing where pickles originate!
I think he got the point! I'm teaching a unit on self-control and on understanding misbehaviors to our school's 17 first grade classes. During the opening lesson, I explain that FEELING like doing something bad doesn't get us in trouble, but actually DOING it does. We go over lots of examples, and I stress the fact that WE are responsible for what WE say and do. If we've done the wrong thing, we can always turn it around. We don't have to keep on doing it. After discussing these points, I read the children a story about a class of critters who decide to stop squabbling and have peace week. On most pages of the story, a character uses self-control, either by doing something good that he DOESN'T want to do or by NOT doing something bad hat he DOES want to do. When the animal character uses self control, we do a cheer: "Hallelujah, bless your soul. You were using self-control!" To get our wiggles out, we stand up and dance to "I Like to Move it Move it" from one of the Madagascar movies, and the children have to show self-control by freezing their bodies every time I stop the music. It's really fun, and I know from experience that it's hard to do! Well one day recently we danced and had a good old time. As class dismissed and I was packing up to leave, a sandy-haired boy with kind eyes tapped me on the arm to get my attention. "Miss Mimi, I was dancing when I saw Joanna's watch on the floor. I didn't want to stop dancing, but I knew it would get stomped on, so I picked it up and gave it back to her." I was so thrilled that I jumped up and down with tears in my eyes. "Halleluia, bless your soul, you were using self-control," I squealed. Since this child was assigned to a neighboring classroom, I accompanied him back to class, told his teacher and friends what he had done, and the whole class spontaneously gave him a standing ovation. It's always such a feel-good moment when educators see children applying what they're learning, and this incident made my day!
