Learning about Perseverance

Each month at Lee Elementary we highlight a different positive character trait.  This January we are learning about PERSEVERANCE.  In addition to daily morning announcements about the topic, I try to incorporate the character trait into my guidance lessons.  This week in kindergarten we read The Dot by Peter H Reynolds.  This is a beautifully and simple story about Vashti, a young student that feels she is not an artist.  With a simple kind act from her art teacher, Vashti exudes perseverance and even pays it forward at the end of the story by inspiring another student.

Perseverance is not the easiest word for a kindergartener to say, so we broke it up into parts before we learned what it meant.  Sometimes we feel that something is too difficult for us to do and we want to give up, and having perseverance means that we don't give up.  We keep on trying and working toward our goal, even when it gets difficult.  In the story Vashti starts small with just a dot on her paper.  She showed perseverance when she didn't give up, and eventually she had her own art show.  I had students watercolor their own "dots" (or whatever they chose to paint) to show that they have to strength to keep going even when it might seem hard.