Social Responsibility Standards

Grades K to 3 Social Responsibility Standards and How the Drama/SEL lessons met the Learning Objectives

1. Criteria: Contributing to the Classroom and School Community

Fully Meets Expectations:
• usually welcoming, friendly, kind, and helpful
• participates in and contributes to classroom and group activities

Drama and SEL Lessons
Chester’s Way: Learning to welcome new students to class. Through a 5 step process: Smile, Eye Contact, Listen to their story and then Tell them yours. “SMILE, ‘EYE’ HEAR U ME WE”

2. Criteria: Solving Problems in Peaceful Ways

Fully Meets Expectations:
- in conflict situations, tries to express feelings honestly, manage anger appropriately, and listen politely; most often relies on adult intervention without considering alternatives
- can clarify problems and generate and evaluate strategies

Drama and SEL Lessons:

- Hunter’s Best Friend: Learning My Way + Your Way = Our Way but also sometimes, No Way. Learning to say ‘No’ to inappropriate behavior in the classroom and helping their friends choose appropriate behaviors
- Enemy Pie: To turn an enemy into a friend, you have to spend the day with them. How does one get to know a person better?
- do an activity together
- eat together
- share information about each other’s cultures and families
- ask them polite questions about themselves
- learn how to say hello and thank you in their language and use these phrases
- share your things with them
- ask your parents and teachers for ideas or help
To change a person you don’t like or don’t know into a friend, you have to be BRAVE to make the first move and to learn new things. When you try new things, you might like them

- King of the Playground: Role play what problem solving strategies they could use to deal with a bully on the playground.

3. Criteria: Valuing Diversity and Defending Human Rights

Fully Meets Expectations: increasingly interested in fairness; treats others fairly and respectfully

Drama and SEL Lessons:

- Chester’s Way: Getting to Know People My Way + Your Way = Our Way

- Little Stan: Understanding that people sometimes judge by appearance and stereotypes rather

4. Criteria: Exercising Democratic Rights and Responsibilities

Fully Meets Expectations: shows emerging sense of responsibility, generally following
classroom rules; able to identify simple ways to improve theschool, community, or world

Drama and SEL Lessons:

Writing Recipes for Relationships
- Friend Soup
- Enemy Pie
- Community Noodles: Appropriate and Caring behaviors in community settings

King of the Playground Lesson Plan

Discussion Points: How to deal with bullies, social problem solving

Summary - Kevin loves to go to the playground but not when Sammy is there. Sammy says he is king of the playground and says he will do awful things to Kevin is her plays there. Kevin tells his dad about Sammy and they talk it over. One day, Kevin gets up the courage to go to the playground and even though Sammy tells him to go home, he stays.

Activities:
1. Teacher tells the children they are doing a mime. Acting without speaking. She starts by acting as if she is on a swing in the playground, she invites the children to join her in silence. She goes through different playground activities like monkey bars, slides, sandbox, see-saw etc. The children can then continue playing on which they like best

Objectives: Create a place of happiness and friendship as students and teacher jointly create an imaginary world. Practice observation and team work as they relate to each other in this imaginary world

2. “Spot the king and queen of the playground”
Students close their eyes and teacher chooses the king and queen of playground. These are kids who believe they own the playground and they are asked to think of ways they could be mean to the other children on the playground. Game is played in silence. Then teacher calls it to a stop and the students guess who were the king and queen and what actions they did and how that was mean.

Objectives: Could start with children’s own stories of how others had been mean to them while on the playground. The game allows for us to see what the students perceive to be mean acts. Also it could generate a discussion as to why that is perceived as mean and what are the feelings the students have when treated this way. Also the way the children act to the ‘bully’ can be discussed. What happened when the bully pushed them? What else could they do to stop the bully? Can be played 3 times, students seem to enjoy it.

3. Read the King of the Playground
And stop at the different times Kevin was challenged and get the students to take on the role
1) Slide
2) Swing
3) Monkey Bars
Read the story to the end and show how Sammy and Kevin finally became friends.

Objectives: Have 1 child be Kevin. 1 child be Sammy and another to be the father.
Before reading what Kevin and his father talk about, ask the student to say what they would have done. Then get Sammy to respond to that and see how the situation would evolve.

Good way to discuss appropriate problem-solving strategies. Many times the students suggest fighting back or using some force, discuss other ways of dealing with the situation.

Enemy Pie Lesson Plan

Summary - It was the perfect summer. That is, until Jeremy Ross moved into the house down the street and became Enemy Number One. Luckily, Dad has a surefire way to get rid of enemies—Enemy Pie. But one of the secret ingredients is spending an entire day with the enemy!

In this funny yet endearing story, one little boy learns an effective recipe for turning a best enemy into a best friend.

Activities:

- Watch Enemy Pie on PBS Reading Rainbow (found at your local VPL)
And the follow-up with visiting a friend’s home and learning about each other’s cultures
- Discussion on how to make an enemy a friend
- Ask the students what they need to do to change an enemy into a friendActivities like: eat together, cycle together, learn each other’s language, share things etc usually are raised after watching the program

Hunter's Best Friend at School Lesson Plan

Discussion points (taken from VSB list): Sometimes one friend can be put in a difficult situation when the other does something wrong. This book offers a strategy for dealing with this problem

Summary – Hunter and Stripe are best friends and do everything together. When Stripe starts to misbehave Hunter follows along and gets into trouble. Hunter talks with his mother and she teaches him that being a best friend doesn’t always mean doing what your friend does. Hunter solves the problem by helping his friend to be his “best self”

Activities:

Read Hunter’s Best Friend
- Story: “being a best friend doesn’t mean following around. Sometimes being a best friend means you have to help your friend be his best self”

Role Play what we could do when a friend is mischief making in class
- Identify real class situations
- Get students to develop their own strategies for dealing with this

Brainstorming
- What is appropriate behaviour for class/playground etc
- Make a list

Machine: Producing Friends
- Students are part of a machine producing friends.
- One by one they come and make an action and state a word about friendship.
- What are the qualities of Friends and Un-friends
- Acting as a group and listening to each other
- e.g.'s: Friends are Nice (thumbs up), Helpful (open hands), Kind (smiling)

Chester's Way Lesson Plan

Chester’s Way
Discussion point (taken from VSB list): Valuable friendships can be found in people who are different from us

Summary – Chester and Wilson are the very best of friends. They do everything together and are like two peas in a pod. When Lily comes along with her very different way of doing things they are unwilling to be friends until she scares away some older bullies. As the friendship blossoms, Chester and Wilson teach some of their practical skills while Lily teaches the pair to be more imaginative. Then Victor moves into the neighborhood….

Key idea:
My Way + Your Way = Our Way
Explore how all of us have different characteristics but it is so fun to learn from each other

Activities:
- Read Chester’s Way
- Get the students to recap the main events of the story.
Chester and Wilson are good friends
They are very alike
Lilly moves in.
She is different.
She tries to make friends but they ignore her.
When Chester and Wilson are bullied, Lilly saves them.
Chester and Wilson get to know Lilly
They find that they have things in common
They change some of the things they do and make it better with their different ideas
Victor moves in…

- Talk about how the friendship grew from not being friends and what changed. We talk a bit of what they learnt from the book about making friends

- As a class read the play (modified version of the story)
Choose the different characters
Help the main characters by highlighting their parts

- In pairs or threes, practice some actions to go with what the kids will read or make a prop. We read the play again with the actions and props

Follow Up possibilities:
- Write 3 lines of what is YOUR way of doing things?
- Pretend you are Victor, how will you become friends with Chester, Wilson and Lilly?
- If the kids really take to this story, then we can try to write a play with them for Victor as well.

Another Lesson:

Lesson Objective: Learning to appreciate similarities and differences
Making friends for the first time

Game: Human Bingo: They all gather and try to find people who can sign in the boxes.

- This means they will find some people who are have the same interests and those who opposite interests
- Good for getting to know their classmates better and learning to appreciate differences
- My Way + Your Way = Our WayBrainstorm ways that even though 2 people have different interests they can do activities together

Do Chester’s Way play: Role Play making friends with a new person in school or the neighborhood/Victor

Simulation:
Step 1: Be Open, don’t judge,
Step 2: Ask about their hobbies, likes, dislikes
(My Way and Your Way)
Step 3: Our Ways

They do their own plays on how to make friends

- Ask what were the key features

- Format, Smile, Eye Contact, Listen , Your Ways, My Way
Our Way

- key: Smile, Eye, Hear, U, Me, We

Step inside the circle

"Step inside the circle if . . ." serves as a good closing activity for almost any lesson.

Participants stand in a circle. Take turns making statements that begin with "Step inside the circle if...." and invite others to step inside if this statement is true for them. Provide the proviso that participants may step inside to different degrees (a little bit or all the way to the middle) depending on how true the statement is. Also, tell participants that not stepping in may represent that you are still processing the statement or not prepared to share your truth with others, which is okay.

Examples:
Step inside the circle if . . .
- you learned something new today
- you met someone new today
- you had fun
- you tried something new
- you wish you had said something that you didn't
- you learned something new about yourself
- you will tell at least one person about what you experienced here today

Communication Skills

The Circle Storytelling activity can help students develop effective communication skills which contributes to positive relationships in the classroom.

Highlight and give examples of the following 3 components of effective listening skills:
1. Empathy
2. Open questions
3. Rephrasing/summarizing

Ask students to think of a negative personal experience, but nothing too emotional. You may want to give them some examples of possible scenarios. Have students sit in an inner and outer circle with pairs facing each other. Students in the inner circle (facing outwards) tell their negative experience. Students in the outer circle (facing inwards) listen attentively, practicing using empathy, open questioning, and rephrasing. Repeat the activity, giving each person the opportunity to be the speaker and the listener. Debrief after each round, giving positive feedback to the listeners and points for improvement.