4th+grade


 * Please make sure and include your name and the date for the lesson you are posting. Include a quick reflection on what worked well and what you would change about the lesson.**

Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: May 2, 2010 Date lesson taught: Early April Lesson: Grade 4 Lesson 13 from Connected and Respected Preparation: If you think you will have time, copy the handout Total Lesson time: 35 minutes Gathering: Follow the teahcer's manual. I used the boy and girl examples as it engendered lively discussion. Activity - Ask for volunteers to share what they come up with and list them on the board. - Review the list with the class - Follow the teacher's manual as a guide for asking questions - Define "stereotype" for the class - Partner sharing of questions from the manual - Discussion of answers using "talking object" Closing - How can we overcome stereotypes?

Refelction - A very lively sharing and discussion session. None of it was mean spirited, as most kids tteased eachother good naturedly about the sterotypes they held -most of them being gender bias. It took some effort to keep them focused on the goal of the lesson and not regard stereotypes as harmless. I did not see much value in the drawing activity, as it seemd it would take a lot of time to reveal what was obvious.

Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: May 2, 2010 Date lesson taught: Sometime in mid April Lesson: Grade 4, Lesson 14 from Connected and Respected Preparation: Copy the handout Total lesson time: 35 minutes Gathering activity: Skipped Activity - Reveiw previous discussion of stereotypes. Use the questions in Connected and Respected to cover prejudice and stereotypes. - Distribute the handout - Give the students time to review it. (I did not have time for the role playing exercise) - Hold a discussion using the the debriefing questions. Use the talking object. I asked the kids to think of example of prejudice in their lives and several were willing to share. Closing - Summarize by going over definitions andreveiwing how stereotyping leads to prejudice and discrimination. Reflection - Another easy and straghtforward lesson. My fourth graders were acutely aware of gender stereotypes and prejudices (boys are stronger and faster, so girls aren't as good in sports) and it was easy to point out they are often inaccurate. It was necessary to steer them into a discussion of other stereotypes.

Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: May 2, 2010 Date lesson taught: Friday, April 23, 2010 Lesson - Reflecting on personal injustices (a Chris Simpson orginal) Preparation: Have students get out a piece of lined paper and put their name on it. Total lesson time - 35 minutes Gatheirng activity: None Activity - Tell them that they are going to be writing short responses to questions that have to do with personal experiences with injustice. This ties in with the theme of unfairness in society covered in an earlier SEL lesson (Grade 4 Lesson 14 from Connected and Respected). Give the questions orally. Question 1 - Describe an injustice that has happend to you at school. Aid them by saying something like the following, "...Maybe your teacher told you to be quiet and you weren't talking, maybe someone cut you in line, everyone suffers a little from injustices at school. Describe one time when this happened." Give them a few minutes to write. Question 2 - Describe how you felt when the injustice took place. Try not to use "sad." Give them a minute or two to write. Question 3 - Describe what you did. Provide time to write down a response. Question 4 - Describe, what, if anything, changed as a result of your actions. Tell the class that sometimes good things unexpectedly happen. In order to not focus solely on the negative, have them respond to the following questions: Question 5 - Describe a time when an unexpected good thing happened to you at school. Question 6 - How did this make you feel? Question 7 - What did yo do?

Collect the papers and use as a grade for SEL

Refelction: A nice low key lesson that provides a good wrap up to previous lessons on stereotyping and injustice. Also provides another opportunity to get some writing in. Since I thought of the lesson, it must be perfect and has no need to be changed!

Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: Sunday, May 2, 2010 Date Lesson taught: Friday, April 30, 2010 Lesson: Discipline - Doing what you are supposed to do when you don't want to do it ( I came up with this one all by myself) Preparation - Collect enough washers for each student and about 2 feet of sting for each kid. Cut the string into two foot lengths and tie a washer onto the end. Lesson time: Approximately 30 minutes Procedure: Gathering activity - Prior to handing out the washers, let everyone know that they are not toys. Swinging them around can be dangerous. Have the kids hold up the string with the washer in fornt of their eyes, about a foot in front of them. Have them concentrate on the washer and make it become still. Then have them concentrate on the wahser and move the washer from left to right. Kids should be fascinated by how the washer moves by merely willing it to. Ask them to command the washer to become still again. Finally, have them move the washer away and towards them. Have them put the washers away. The purpose of the activity is to get them to think about how pwerful the mind is. Activity - 1) Quiet everyone down and ask them to think about a time when they were asked to do something that they had to do, but didn't want to do. Give them a a minute to think about it. Then ask them to share their experience with a partenr or tablemates. Give them a few minutes. Ask for voulnteers to share with the whole class. Use "talking object" to aid in respectful discussion. 2) After several students have shared, asked them to think about how they felt when this happened. Give them a minute and then tell them to share with a partenr or tablemate. Repeat the procedure for classwide sharing. 3) End the sharing and review how everyone experiences these situations. What is important is how we handle them 4) Ask them to think about a time when they did what they had to do - what was the situation? Repeat partner sharing and group sharing. 5) Ask them to think about a time when they didn't do what they were supposed to do. What was the situation and what happened? Repeat partner shairing and group sharing. Remind them that they don't have to share all of the corporal punishment details. Conclusion/Debriefing- Write "Discipline" on the board and tell them one definition is doing what you have to do even when you don't want to do it. Use their expereinces to show how not doing what we are supposed to do often has negative consequences. We have to learn to do what we have to do, even when we don't want to do it. It is a key part of the "I can" skill of the SEL faceplate.

Reflection: The kids loved the gathering activity. It takes a little bit of time to assemble the washes and strings, but it is worth it. I wound up confiscating five or so by the end of the day. Everyone wanted to keep theirs. It also provided a good segue into the discipline portion - concentrate on what needs to be done and it can get done. The kids loved sharing their not so nice experiences with a lack of discipline. I had to cut off the sharing to fit the time constraint.

I think another activity that could be added is a real time demonstraton of being disciplined. Place candy in front of them and tell them they can eat it if they wait quietly for two minutes. If anyone talks, laughs, etc. their candy is taken away.

SEl Lesson.

My experience with the "Connected and Respected" lessons has been satisfactory, so most of my postings will be a synopsis of lessons used from that curriculum. Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: Sunday, March 21, 2010 Date lesson taught: Friday, March 19, 2010 Lesson: Grade 4 Lesson 12 //Exploring Feelings About Differences//

Quick summary: The gathering is a human bingo game. The activity is a sharing of a time when you felt different. The sheet for the bingo game is included and needs to be copied for each student. Since we are usually constrained by time, I always skip the agenda check and the debriefing.

How did it go?: The gathering went longer than what I planned. The kids did a real good job of walking around and filling out the sheet. They were orderly and respectful. I let them go longer than planned because they were doing such a good job. The activity discussion went well. I assigned them partners according to who they were sitting across from. Everyone seemed to be participating. Since time was running short (only 30 minutes available), I had to cut things short a bit. I asked a few of the students to share a time when they felt different and I told of a time when I felt different. There was no time for reading the poem.

I would not change anything about the lesson

Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: March 21, 2010 Date lesson taught: February 26, 2010

Here's a quick and simple lesson that I got from Krisi Therriault. You can use it when you need to collect something for grading.

Intro: Tell the students the dsicussion is going to be about feelings. Let them know that everyone has them and it is important to acknoledge them. It helps to be able to understand how you are feeling and to be able to communicate how you feel.

Activity: Hand out white drawing paper. Tell them to recall a time when they were happy and another time when they were sad. Ask them to write and/or draw about when they felt this way. However, they can not use the words "happy" or "sad". Give them a few minutes to complete the exercise. Circulate and observe. Encourage them to use complete sentences.

Closing: Collect and grade. I assigned a value of 1-4 and used it as a grade for self awareness.

Reflection: It does not get much simpler than this. Many of my kids enjouyed the chance to draw. No one took it too far. I gained some insight on a few the students who were unable to put down anything.

Author: Ralph Simpson Posting date: March 12, 2010 Date Lesson taught: I can't remember, but it was early in the year. Lesson: Grade 4, Lesson 4, //Working Cooperatively//

Quick summary: The gathering requires students to line up in order by birthday days and months without talking. The main part of the activity was a pair discussion on a time when they cooperated with someone else to get something worthwhile done. People volunteered to share their experiences. Wrap things up by summarizing what it takes to cooperate with others.

How did it go?: OK The gathering could have gone smoother as several kids did not focus on the task and chose to try and humor others. The pair discussion went a little better. The wrap up went even better as I think the kids gained a greater aprreciation and understanding of cooperation by the end of the lesson.

The opening activity was OK, but I don't get the point of not being able to talk. In my opinion, it distracts fromt he goal of the lesson. Having to cooperate in this manner is rare. Next time I might choose several simple cooperative activities that get progressively more difficult in order to draw out how the task often determines the level of cooperation (i.e. line up by height, then line up by shoe size, then line up by birth day without talking.

Harcourt/SEL alignment Erica Monkelien Here are the questions that align with the Harcourt reading curriculum