Obedience

It's been a whirlwind of a month with parent/teacher conferences, an illness I'm still recovering from, and a few extra days off this last week!  So, here's a little lesson my 1st graders completed somewhere around the end of September, beginning of October. 

We were discussing my three rules...

• Be Respectful
• Be Safe
• Be Trustworthy

...and we were investigating the "Be Safe" rule.  I read the classic story of "Peter Rabbit" to them and we learned about how Peter's disobedience caused him to lose his jacket and shoes and almost be injured.  I was giving the kiddos the saying "Obeying means following directions all the way, right away and with a happy heart".  And by golly the kiddos still remind me of this today!!!  A lesson that they remember....and one that was so simply to put together.  Read a story, discuss, and write a letter to Peter on how you would help him obey so he can remain safe.  The kiddos enjoyed writing the letters and wanted to mail them...I'll have to save that idea and add it to my lesson next year so they can "mail" their letters and receive a "response" from Peter.  :)

Tech Junkies

My fourth graders have been spending the last couple of lessons discussing teamwork and the importance of learning how to work well with others at an early age.  We have equated this with a baseball team, talking about how there are observers, participants and helpers and how each has a very important roll to play.  The kiddos have grasped this concept and taken off with it!  It has been a pleasure to watch them learn to work with one another and encourage one another.  I am truly seeing teamwork play out! 

After I broke the kiddos into groups of three, their assignment was to peruse from a list of 10 creative activities, choose one as a group and create it.  The catch this year though, is that instead of handing out large sheets of construction paper, the kids were able to use their iPads to aid in their creative process.  And I must say...I was impressed!  Even though the pictures may appear that they are not "working" together...what the pictures failed to capture were the conversations they were all having while working on gathering things for their projects.  In the all the years that I've done this lesson I have not had 100% participation.  There was always at least one or two kiddos who just would not actively participate.  But not this year...the technology has created little tech junkies...but hey..at least they are reading, learning and working together!  :)