When we were told to do a read aloud to our Dyad class, I was very concerned. I am in a sixth grade math class, but I found out my teacher also teaches a remedial reading class. This class has a lot of behavioral issues, so it was not hard to decide what I wanted to reach about. My challenge was finding a picture book that wasn't to childish to teach respect. I have learned throughout my schooling to ask for help, so our Librarian was very helpful.
I found a book called Piggy Monday: A tale about Manners by Suzanne Bloom. I thought it would be to childish, but the students loved it. My first experience teaching sixth graders went very well! It was a very cheesy topic, but I feel these kids understood how to respect their teacher now. After reading the book, I had the students do a free write to recall a time when they or someone else was disrespectful and I had them write how they would change that situation. Then we made a table with good and bad manners. Everything went very well.
I was also thinking this could lead to an activity about creating class norms. The class talks back to the teacher and are very rude. I hope this lesson helps, but maybe they were just good for me.
Any thoughts??
I agree this lesson would be an excellent platform for establishing classroom norms. My main placement in third grade similarly discussed what it means to be respectful/responsible and wrote a class list together. The following week everyone signed it and it was posted at the front of the room. Perhaps similarly creating a list together, and then signing it will hold your sixth graders accountable for their behavior. If anyone is rude, then the expectations are posted for the class to see.
ReplyDeleteThe librarian may have another picture book on other "virtues" such as responsibility, integrity, leadership, determination...ect...
Will you have another opportunity to read to this class before the quarter ends?
Sounds like a great book. It makes me think of a book I really wanted read to my students, called Me First, by Lynn Munsinger. The main character is a pig named Pinkerton. I wanted to read it because so often the elementary kids always seem to squabble over who is first in line whenever we line up to go somewhere. I didn’t end up choosing that book for my read aloud but I still hope I get the chance to read it to them another time.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of books about manners and treating each other with kindness and respect. I think the more often kids hear these ideas, the better. It sounds like your read aloud was very effective. Just as with any learning, we cannot teach it to students once and expect them to remember it always, we need to refer back to it, review it and continue to use it in our everyday language.