In fourth grade we've begun our unit on bullying. Each year I spend time in each grade level teaching developmentally appropriate lessons to increase their depth of understanding about bullying. I begin by having students fill out a quick True/False quiz to see their initial opinions of what bullying is:
We then go through the following charts, one that I adapted (download here) from Mrs. Sinclair's Counseling Blog to fit our students and district's definition of bullying & two from Savvy School Counselor's Blog. I read different scenarios aloud to students and each table discusses which box it most accurately reflects.
After students have a clear understanding, we go back over their True/False survey to see how accurate they were and what they now have learned. I finish by having them take an online google survey I created. The survey asks a variety of questions about their experiences with bullying at our school. My following visit we go through the results and discuss our findings. We reflected on the results that most shocked us, did not surprise us, which behaviors were the most common types of bullying behaviors at our school and how we could make Lee Elementary a safer place.
My favorite books to read at the beginning of the year are Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and Bucket Filling A to Z, both by Carol McCloud.
Each of these books does a great job explaining how each of us has an invisible bucket that we carry around each day. When others are kind to us, it fills up our buckets. When we are kind to others, it fills up their buckets. However, when we are unkind to each other it dips into a bucket. Across the lower grade levels, I did a variety of lessons and activities to help students learn about bucket filling behaviors.
We sorted behaviors into Bucket Fillers and Bucket Dippers choices:
We drew pictures to show us being Bucket Fillers:
We made Bucket Filling acrostics using our names:
We sorted choices we make that show others we are Bucket Fillers or Bucket Dippers:
Research shows that spending at least 15 minutes a day talking with your
kids can build the foundation for a strong relationship, develop their
resilience to peer pressure, and help prevent bullying. In honor of National Bullying Month in October, SAMHSA is offering this free app for download on your iPhone and iPad.
Habit 2 — Begin with the End in Mind
Have a Plan
I plan ahead and set goals. I do things that have meaning and make a
difference. I am an important part of my classroom and contribute to my
school’s mission and vision. I look for ways to be a good citizen.
We began this weeks lesson by reviewing what they remembered from Sean Covey's book about Habit 2. I followed up with an inspirational video created by the Kahn Academy called "You Can Learn Anything."
Students loved the idea that we all start at "0" and we must learn everything through our experiences and our mistakes. I shared a graphic of famous failures to extend our discussion on how we all face obstacles in our life and it's how we choose to handle them that makes all the difference.
I then had students complete a series of activities compiled by Rachael Wallace form TeachersPayTeachers (link here) The first was a survey on if they are a "go-getter" or a "day dreamer." Armed with this information, we created a Wish List of things they were interested in achieving.
After teaching them how to write a SMART goal, they picked one thing off of their wish list to turn into a SMART goal.
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Attainable
R - Realistic
T - Timely
Here are some example pages from 2 students:
Goal: Apple Laptop
Goal: Pogo Stick
In third grade we read Tease Monster by Julia Cook. I enjoy reading this story because it helps students differentiate "teasing" from "bullying." As children grow they learn to develop their own unique sense of humor from the models around them. Sometimes the remarks they make are funny to their friends, but other times the unfiltered remarks can rub friends the wrong way. Good-natured teasing should bring friendships and relationship closer, whereas hurtful teasing can do the exact opposite.
Tease Monster helps students evaluate if a tease is a good-natured tease that adds to their friends' lives or if a tease is mean-spirited and takes away from their friends' lives. It also provides students with coping skills they can use to resolve conflict if a tease is taken the wrong way. Many times something said that was meant to be funny can take a wrong turn and really offend your friends. If this happens, an easy fix is to genuinely apologize.
We made t-charts to describe the differences:
