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!