K-2 Kelso's Choice

To finish our theme of Friendship I am ending this month with conflict management skills for K-2 classes. I use the curriculum Kelso's Choice when teaching problem solving. The curriculum is split into 2 sections: K-3 and 4-5. I enjoy teaching students these skills because it empowers them to work through some of the 'small problems' they may have with friends. We first talk about the difference between small and big problems. I have my puppet friends (Kelso and is friend Lilly) help me out. We then think of adults who they trust that they can go to when there is a big problem.

We cover these skills over 3 lessons. With the curriculum there is the teaching of Kelso's wheel where we go over different strategies to solve small problems. Each lesson we cover a few and then practice them together so they have it down incase they may need to use it. The students understand that they need to pick 2 of the strategies on the wheel to solve their small problem first and if it still is not resolved they can come to me or a grownup they trust to help them with it. I have seen a big improvement with students working out their small problems. I pass out wheels to the teachers and have them help with some of the skills students have been learning in social skills class. The students are becoming great at solving their small problems!

Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun

In our 2nd Grade social skills classes we have been talking about friendship and how we can solve our friendship problems. I started today's lesson with having students get into small groups asking them some friendship questions:

1. Has someone ever been unkind to you? What happened?
2. How have you solved a friendship problem with someone on your own?
3. Have you ever helped someone out that was not nice to you?

After our small group discussions we listened to Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun by Maria Dismondy. You can check out her website at http://www.mariadismondy.com/. She has great books on teaching how to accept people and empower students when they deal with tough situations. When our story was done we had a group conversation about how the other students treated the characters in the book. Students really grasped the concept of "if you want others to be nice to you then you should be nice to them".

The Giving Tree

In our 1st Grade social skills classes we are continuing to talk about friendship for the month of March. One fun lesson we did was about showing kindness towards others and not expecting anything in return. A book that came to my mind was The Giving Tree by Shel Sivlerstein. The students and I had a great discussion after the story about the friendship between the boy and the tree. They described what the tree did for the boy throughout his life and came up with ways they have shown kindness in their own lives.

After our discussion we came up with a list of words that we would want in a friend and came up with our own friend 'ships'. The students enjoyed designing their own ships and coming up with words for a quality friendship.

Friendship Soup

Today our 2nd Grade social skills classes talked about Friendship. We talked about what makes a good friend and ways we can keep a friend. We watched a fun clip called Friendship Soup to get the students thinking about all the ingredients that go into a really good friendship. This clip is part of The Ned Show and that website has a lot of ideas to promote academics and character education.

Afterwards we came up with a list of what we look for in a friendship to make our own friendship soup. We came up with Friend Wanted flyers. The students are on the lookout for a good friend and in return they will receive a great friend! 

 



Stand in my Shoes!

In 2nd Grade Social Skills Classes we did a lesson on empathy and respecting human differences. We went over what the word empathy means because we did cover it in the beginning of the school year. It was a great review and many students responded by helping others and it is your friend's feelings. I explained that all of us are different just like our shoes we wear. We all checked each other's shoes out and discovered that we go a lot of places with our shoes. It was a good visual for them to realize that we come from different places. Next I read 'Stand in my Shoes' by Bob Sornson. The book went right along with our theme empathy and helping the students understand why it is important to pay attention to other's feelings. After the book we looked at several different shoe pictures I had up on the screen and created a story about the pair of shoes. Each story introduced someone that was going through a difficult time in their life. I had the students imagine how they could help that person and if they were that person what they could do. They really enjoyed this lesson and come up with some great ideas how they could make the situation better.

No two Alike!

In Kindergarten Social Skills Class we have been talking about how we are all special and unique. We went around the classroom and talked about things that we are really good at. We also shared what we need to practice to get better at. Students began to understand that we all have strengths and weaknesses. Next we read a story called 'No Two Alike' by Keith Baker. The story didn't have a lot of words to it but it created a great discussion of how things around us are different and the students could share their experiences about it. After we read our story we worked on a worksheet called snowflakes of friendship. This worksheet helped students think of different people in their life who are special to them.

The Crayon Box that Talked

In Kindergarten social skills classes we are talking about human diversity and a fun way to talk about this is to read The Crayon Box that Talked by Shane Derolf. Students enjoy this book because we talked about how boring life would be if we had just one color. Students agreed that we like to have lots of colors and all work together just like the crayons in our story. After reading our story we made our own crayons by drawing our self-portrait on them found at Teachers Pay Teachers. We will be hanging these up in our classroom and showing that life is full of colors and we should appreciate all of our differences!