In this lesson, I reminded the students of my role at school. Then, we talked about how I often see students when they are having bad days. We read the book "Even Superheroes Have Bad Days" that talks about positive choices that we can make when we are having a rough day. Students identified positive and negative choices for tough situations. Then, they colored their own superhero and identified two positive choices they can make to help them feel better when they are having a bad day.
Lesson 2 - "The Bully Blockers Club"
In this lesson, we discussed bullying and how to handle it. We defined the difference between rude (something that happens once accidentally), mean (something that happens once on purpose), and bullying (something that happens over and over again on purpose).
Then, we read the book, "The Bully Blockers Club" by Teresa Bateman. This is a story about a girl who is being constantly picked on by a student in her class. She tries many different strategies, but nothing works until she makes a Bully Blockers Club with her classmates. In this club, they don't put up with bullies and invite everyone to play with them who are being picked on. The club helped to stop the bullying and was a huge success.
After reading the story, the students decided that they wanted to be a part of the Bully Blockers Club. I made a poster for their room with rules for the club (such as invite people to play with you, tell an adult if you can't handle the situation on your own, always be respectful), then all of the students signed the poster.
Lesson 3 - Feelings
In this lesson, we talked about feelings and why it is important to know how ourselves and other people are feeling. We read the book "Feelings to Share from A-Z" by Todd and Peggy Snow which lists a different feeling for every letter of the alphabet. After reading the book, we played a game of feelings charade. In this game, students took turns drawing a feeling and then acting it out to the class while they guessed the feeling. This game helped students identify non-verbal cues to help them develop empathy and emotional awareness.
Lesson 4 - Self-esteem
In this lesson, we talked about self-esteem and defined high and low self-esteem. We talked about how it is important to always try to remember the great things about ourselves even when we are feeling down. We read the book "Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon" by Patty Lovell. This is a story about a little girl who looks different than the other kids and gets made fun of. However, she always listens to her grandmother's advice to use positive self-talk to see her qualities that make her different as positive rather than the negative ways that other people are making her feel. After the story, students all made their own self-esteem flowers where they identified their own positive qualities on each petal of the flower. Students were reminded to always remember these things just like Molly Lou Melon did