Funny Friends

Are you guys loving this Android commercial as much as me?

I adore it!  I knew I had to sneak it into one of my lessons. I also had to share with one of my favorite collaborators, S. Svarda, School Librarian extraordinare. Check out her blog here!!!

 This month my lesson with 2nd/3rd really continues to morph, especially with Valentines Day. Here's a rough sketch of what I did and how I used this wonderful video.

Introduction: This month we are talking about respect, being a considerate classmate, and bullying prevention. I introduced the topic asking students to share with a neighbor one way they include others at school.

Lesson: Next I asked them to look and see if they could see any of their answers in our story and we read the  award winning and wonderful book "Each Kindess" by Jacqueline Woodson.

Next (depending on time) we played Quiz Quiz Trade using my "Each Kindness" cards. You can get them on my TPT store for $1. Some classes we played a short game (find 5 partners) and some classes we played a longer game. It really depended on time and what I had planned next.

Follow Up Fun - Here are 2 options for what to do next.

You have 45 seconds to judge me....

Not really, but that's what today's lesson is about. Making snap judgements based on things we have read or have seen on the internet and using our eyes to judge people, instead of getting to know them.

This lesson has several activities and stopping points for discussion and I have done it with 3rd- 6th grade, but you could easily do it with middle school and yes I would do it with high school.

First, I like the students to have an open discussion so I remind them of our socratic seminar rules.

Then using the smart board I showed them this pup and asked:

I let the students openly share their judgements about the dog and have discussion about what they would do and think if they saw him at the park, etc.

Then I let them meet Jack Frost, the after of the dog above!

Read more about this sweet boy and his journey here: http://pittiesincity.blogspot.com/2012/12/meet-our-new-foster-jack-frost.html

After we discussed first impressions I let the students play the shoe detective game. I do this game almost every year so you can read about it more here: http://sassyschoolcounselor.blogspot.com/2012/07/dont-judge-book-by-its-cover.html

The game is very easy and fun, but best of all your teachers will love you because it ties in critical reading and thinking skills such as using schema and evidence to create an inference.