Respect: 4-6

Whew! What a crazy month this has been! As we wrap up the school year in my county, I wanted to do one last post for this year's lessons. I made a previous post about respect with my K-3 classes.

Originally I had planned to do a superhero themed respect lesson, But I love Tacky the Penguin so much, I decided last minute to adapt this lesson for my older kids! It ended up being a pretty fun lesson talking about how we are all different and how we need to respect the differences in others. 

First, I start off with a game. My kids love games! It is an adapted version of Simon Says in which only some kids get to do each one each time. I'll have students with green eyes raise their hands or have students whose favorite sport is basketball put their hand on the head. I mix up my directions, so I also tell them they have to be listening to what I'm telling them to do in addition to whether the current topic applies to them. The point of this at the end is that we are all different. I ask my students what they noticed during our game, and nearly every class manages to say how we are all different with little prompting. 


Next I read Tacky. My older students do enjoy being read to. They are more attentive during my reading than during any other time. After I read Tacky, we talk about how different Tacky was. I then ask them who thinks Tacky got picked on by his friends because he was weird or different. Most students believe he would have been. We then discuss how we shouldn't do that and I remind them how different we all were in our game. I tell them they will meet some people who are oddbirds like Tacky. They'll meet some weird people. They may like these people or the way they do things, but that does NOT mean they can treat these Tacky-like people poorly because they are different or be cruel to them because they are a little odd. I tell them I expect them to be respectful to these people.

We then switch gears and talk about how if everyone is different, they are the only them the world has. No one is like them. We talk about the word unique and what things make us unique. Their activity is a sheet with ten places for them to write unique things about themselves. I tell them these things need to be things they are proud of and that they cannot be about things they own, except for pets. I give them examples to give them some ideas. I suggest hair, eye color, hobbies, sports they play, cool abilities they have (juggling, spinning a basketball on their finger, doing a back bend, being double jointed, etc.), being short or tall, wearing glasses, having freckles, etc. I give them a personal example of still being able to buy shoes in the children's department. I tell them that I know that's somewhat weird, but it makes me unique and I'm proud of it. I think if you can give them a person example like that it really helps encourage them to think about theirs. Several of mine light up when I talk about my weird little feet! I usually have one ask if I'll take them up, which I don't. I don't need their sheets, and I want my students to remember things they are proud of about themselves. 

You can get my Tacky worksheet AND a copy of the Simon Says game here!