5 Ways to Handle a Bully

To end our Bully unit in 1st grade social skills classes we talked about how to handle others if they are being mean or bullying us. We talked about the importance of what what bullying is earlier this month so students have been more aware if situations come up. Our 5 ways to handle a bully are

1. Say "Leave me Alone"
2. Say "Please Stop"
3. Play with others
4. Talk to a grownup that you trust
5. Stay calm, be friendly

We talked about each one of these strategies and when we should do them. To have students remember these 5 strategies we made our own bully bugs. Students colored and cut out circles that already had the 5 strategies written on them. They glued them together and read the strategies to each other. The students were very engaged with this and had 5 great techniques to help them.

Bad Case of the Tattle Tongue

In our 1st grade social skills class we talked about the difference between reporting and tattling. We began by talking what it means to tattle and we shared some ideas. We looked at a list to compare the two so students could understand when to report and when it is not okay to tattle on someone.

Once we had a better understanding of reporting vs tattling, we then read The Bad Case of the Tattle Tongue by Julia Cook. The students love this book because it is a great book to remember the difference between the two. I still have students come up to me and talk about the book many months after we read it so I know that this book and our discussion sticks with them with when to report.  

The Great Kindness Challenge

Our school participated in the Great Kindness Challenge this year. The students were given a 50 random acts of kindness checkoff list to do within a week. The students had a lot of fun with this and once they completed as many as they could they turned in their checkoff list to me to receive a special kindness matters certificate! I am always looking for new ideas to improve our school's climate and incorporating tolerance, respect and unity! Check out The Great Kindness Challenge to learn more information!!

The Sneetches.... Accepting our Differences

Over the past few social skills lessons with 1st grade we have been discussing bullying. Today we talked about accepting and treating each other with respect. We talked about treating others fairly and having empathy for everyone. We read The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss so students could understand how we should treat everyone. 

After our story we played a game called Sneetch Ball. The concept of the game is to have all the students say something nice about someone else. Students went into a circle and every other student received a star (I used post-it notes). They had to toss a ball to someone that had a star or did not have a star depending on if they had one and say one nice thing about them. This was a chance for students to give compliments towards others in the class. I did challenge them to give a compliment to someone each day. 

Don't Laugh At Me

Continuing with our discussions about bullying, 1st grade social skills classes learned about what bullying looks like (hurting someone's body), sounds like (hurting someone's feelings) and feels like (hurting someone's friendship). By being able to clarify different areas of bullying helped students understand the importance of reporting it to an adult. After our discussion we read the book Don't Laugh at Me. 

This was a really powerful book for the students. Some of them were able to relate to the characters in the story and how they were being treated. We talked about how the kids in the book felt. It brought a really good discussion about how we should be treating everyone with respect and act nicely towards one another. 

Students also enjoyed watching the YouTube clip of this book found here: 

Be Brave, Be Bold, a Teacher Must be Told

During January social skills classes, 1st graders have been discussing bullying. We have been going over the difference of someone being mean and someone bullying. We broke down bullying into 3 ways they can remember:

1. When mean behavior happens over and over (Could be daily, weekly, monthly)
2. When someone tries to control you (Can involve a threat)
3. They do it on purpose (not an accident)

Even though we discussed being mean and bullying are both not nice and unfriendly we talked about how they should never handle bullying by themselves and they should always tell a grownup that they trust. We listed off grownups that could help us if someone was being a bully to us or a friend. This led into our story by listening to Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies which can be found on https://wedolisten.org/media/index.html. The students loved this book because they could see how telling a teacher is the best option to deal with bullying. 

Next the students drew a picture of themselves telling their teacher about bullying from what they learned in social skills class.