A fabulous pack full of all the information you'll need to start a theater school or drama club program. The pack covers start-up issues, insurance, royalties, health and safety and also includes 12 fabulous drama lesson plans, an outline for a mini performance, explanations of drama methods, tips f...
When my kids came back from spring break this week, they were greeted with shampooed carpets, new collaboration desk clusters, fully stocked common desks, rotated book titles, and one less fish. I forgot to bring back Skittles, our classroom fish, who was still sitting on the entertainment center at home. It was very much a fresh start for everyone after the winter grind that brought long streaks of indoor recess, multiple rounds of state and district testing, and a consistent escalation of what my kids call "drama." I call it meanness. For the two weeks or so before spring break, there was a noticeable increase in student counseling , calls from concerned parents, and tears in the 6th grade. Student factions were constantly shifting their allegiances, leaving what were once friends, literally and figuratively standing out in the cold. The evidence and impact of rumor mongering, which causes emotional pain and hurt feelings, had increased. To me, the meanness was starting to erode away some of the classroom community that we had worked so hard to build together over the last eight months. Monday, as the kids began sleepily doing their morning work and listening to welcome back announcements, I started to clean the main whiteboard. The task got their attention, because it is something that they have never seen me do before. Tasks like those don't take place when kids are supposed to be learning. I removed all of the 'stuff' from what is normally our main board for instruction. All the magnets, signs, attendance sticks, etc were taken away or placed on the auxiliary board. I used the 'special' overpriced whiteboard spray and some rags to achieve a perfectly white surface. Nothing. Just before lunch I showed the kids a short video on how to subtly stand up for someone who is being treated mean or bullied. I tried to not sound old while offering them suggestions on how to verbalize a "stop it" message to someone choosing to be mean. The following morning I had written, just one word on the board. mean. I then shared some more videos on how bullying happens and how it continues. The lessons were short, focused and sometimes intense. I didn't want to lecture, I wanted to inform. I wanted the kids to make the connection between the words and actions they choose and how those choices impact others. Wednesday morning, as the kids entered the room, they immediately noticed that the big board was filled with meanness. Mean words, actions, and descriptors filled the space. I choose to write the words in black and blue, to symbolically represent the physical harm that meanness can rise too. After answering the most frequently asked question of "how long did that take you?", they began to notice the breadth of the words. Many of the words the kids didn't know, like avarice, scorn, and nefarious. However, when placed alongside more familiar words like mean, taunt, and pain, the variety of words helped them understand that there is more than one way to describe unkindness. On Thursday, even-though it took me over an hour to put the words up just the day before, I erased a bunch of them and created a space to write 'How do you want to be remembered?' smack dab in the middle of all the meanness. I shared my personal story of some events and people from my childhood that I still remembered. Life events that still bring me pain when I recall them. It was difficult at times to tell the stories, but I think my emotions helped land the message that the pain caused by others can last. Friday we were visiting the middle school that my 6th graders will be attending next year, and with it, a glimpse of another new start. Before we left we watched a powerful video of a young boy who was changing schools and was afraid that he would continue to be bullied and called names. The video message ends with him making a decision to keep fighting for who he is and a recognition that he matters. Once the video was complete, I silently walked to the board filled with mean words and characteristics, erased one of them, and replaced it with Love. I wanted to give them an opportunity to define themselves, while at the same time realize that they were in charge of their choices and legacy. I handed my marker to one of my students and asked them to help me erase meanness and replace it with a word of kindness or a word that they wanted to be remembered by. Over the next few minutes, as the rainbow of dry erase markers were passed around, the words on the board began to represent their aspirations. I was so proud of these young people and the respect that they were giving the process. They sat quietly and watched their classmates slowly transform the black and blue board into one of color and hope. It was an amazing and touching experience. We then headed off to their new school for a morning of tours and lunch. We had a blast seeing all of the resources and activities that will be part of of their academic lives in 7th and 8th grade. When we returned I shared the activity with my science and math sections. Powerful moments were created each time. We began to see how we can change the world with just a little kindness. Our world prism widened as we began to realize what we could become. During dismissal procedures, when my kids returned to gather their things and head home, they noticed that all of the harmful words weren't gone. Still visible were words such as envy and detest, but then a powerful observation was made. Yes there was meanness still present. Sadly, we can never get rid of it all, but kindness and caring can overwhelm the unkind. When we looked at the colored words of kindness that now represented our 6th grade, you barely noticed the words of pain. We literally "Erased Meanness" and replaced it with kindness. Update May 2013 : The reply I gave to a reader's request. Thanks for reading, I appreciate it. And yes it was an amazingly powerful lesson and one that I hope they never forget. I've never included the specific videos that I used in this post, because I picked them out specifically for my kids to address some of the things that I was seeing in my classroom. I guess I didn't want the lesson to be copied verbatim if another educator wanted to use the idea. I would rather have them tailor it to their classroom. I see know that that may have been shortsighted. I used a variety of sources and clips and have included them in my October Post "Charles Adler Show" here The word list I use to create the whiteboard is available here in this Google Doc Update August 23, 2014 - Launch of EraseMeanness.org ! I started a non-profit organization to spread the lesson of Erasing Meanness beyond this post. Kids really respond to this lesson and it is something that they remember. I like that. Join us by visiting our site. EraseMeanness.org Follow us on Twitter or https://twitter.com/EraseMeanness and Pinterest Update August 13th, 2015 - New materials for 2015's Worldwide Erase Meanness Day posted at http://www.erasemeanness.org/join-the-movement.html Join us and kids around the world as we try and make the world a kinder place. Follow me on Twitter @YourKidsTeacher
You will receive a download for 3 versions, colour, black and white plus a PDF fillable version (so no printer needed for that version as can be downloaded and filled in on a tablet or laptop). This worksheet is around Letting Go. it could be a negative thought, action or memory. There comes a point that at times we need to 'Let Go' of things that are holding us back. Write down these thoughts in the balloon and allow these to float off into the sky. Others have taken the worksheet once completed and then ripped it up or even burnt it (safely) afterwards. Visually this allows the mind to see that it is no longer there allowing healing to start to take place.
Try this easy tinfoil sculpture art lesson in your classroom. Learn more from this blog post.
Nefertiti Makeup? Venus of Willendorf fertility services? Ancient Egyptian Funeral Home? Your students will love coming up with commercials inspired by art!
An ongoing lesson in kindergarten is to tell how you are feeling and to try to get students to go beyond I was happy. It was fun. I went home. At this point in the year, I am trying to get students to tell more details. We made a strong feelings chart last week and now we are working on what the feeling looks like and sounds like. We played charades using our bodies and trying to guess the feeling. I love the book The Bad Mood! It is the perfect book to show feelings and have students make predictions about the ending. I know Showing our feelings are BIG ideas for kindergarten. This lesson is planting the seed for what good writers do. After reading, talking and acting out our different feelings, we began to work on a feelings anchor chart for the classroom. Our guiding question: what would a person act do or say if they were feeling ______? You will see that students worked in groups answering this question. After reading lots of feeling books, the students worked in groups on the sheet below. click here for the feelings sheets Showing Chart for Feelings
Do you use rubrics for self-assessment with your students? I developed this rubric based on others I had seen online. I wanted to get my students thinking more about their artwork and writing a few sentences in reflection. We haven’t done much writing in art class before, so I didn’t want to overwhelm them. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for my rubric? (Does everything sound right, but also easy enough for little kids to understand?) … Read more... →
Preschool art projects are the perfect way to stimulate creativity and encourage kids to explore. Grow creative problem solvers through art.
Hi There! Last week I posted on Facebook about how my team's hallway needed a spring make-over. We were stuck in winter mode and the dark blue butcher paper was starting to depress me. I needed color! I needed funshine... yes... I said FUNSHINE!! This week, I had planned a lesson on self-esteem for my 4th graders. Part of our curriculum is to teach students about tobacco and alcohol resistance. I always start this conversation with lessons on self-esteem and friendships. I started the lesson with a quick powerpoint with two pictures: one of a child frowning and looking down, the other of a child smiling and looking confident. I had the students brainstorm words to describe each of the kids. Then I introduced them to the term self-esteem. We then went to kids health.org and read the article "The Story of Self-Esteem". I use kids health.org a lot. It has great articles written so that kids can understand the concepts. The website even has a read-aloud feature. My students LOVE it because it is a computer voice that often pronounces words incorrectly and they think that is hilarious! After we added our notes to our health notebooks, I introduced the "Garden of Greatness" craft. I had each student brainstorm a list of things that he or she is good at, things that made them feel important, or things that made them feel unique and special. I passed out strips of bright colored paper and circles pre-labeled with their names. Students glued between 4 and 8 of the strips onto the back of the circle. When that was done, they turned over the flowers to the front side and wrote ideas off of their list onto the strips of paper. To finish the project, I collected the flowers and stapled them onto the bulletin board. As I stapled, I wrapped each petal to the back. The finish product turned out great! Bright, colorful, and full of FUNSHINE!! Thanks for visiting! Here are few new resources recently added to my TeachersPayTeachers store: Get it FREE! Click on the graphic to go to my TpT store to download!
Conflict Needs Players Perpetrator . Victim Rescuer Dr Stephen Karpman’s 1968 idea, was that conflict needs players and players need roles. The consequential objective of each role is just …
Health freebie for primary grades. Grade 1 teachers. Unhealthy and healthy foods sort.
Emotion regulation is important to children's social and emotional development.Teaching kids how to identify their feelings teaches them self control.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Plate-Cut-and-Paste FREE at TpT!
Students work in pairs and role play the given situations. This activity will help your students develop and improve their speaking skills in an interesting way! - ESL worksheets
5 Finger Breathing mindfulness calming tool
Inside Out Lesson Plans & FREE Inside Out Classroom Feeling Chart
Teaching the human body's parts should begin at a young age and continue through high school. It is a constant learning process that needs to be encouraged at each stage of life. Children as young as 2 are expected to know the basic body parts, and high school graduates are required to know the body's complex ...
The series board games should be a funny, playful way to practice vocabulary and grammar orally. The instructions for the teachers are included.If you like this game, you can find more board games here:https://en.islcollective.com/mypage/my-creations?search_key=Board+games&type=printables&option=published&id=5163&grammar=&vocabulary=&materials=&levels=&studentTypes=&skills=&languageExams=&dialect=&functions=&page=1&sorting_type=most_newest&filter_type=filter_all&view_type=list&view_length=12 - ESL worksheets
Welcome to post #3 in my series about relational aggression. You can find the first post here and post #2 on how to spot friendship bullying here. In my last post, I mentioned the importance of teaching children how their behavior affects other people. In this blog post, I will introduce you to a wonderful FREE resource to do just that: The Ophelia Project Curriculum The Ophelia Project began in 1997 in response to the issues raised in Dr. Mary Pipher's book Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. The Ophelia Project created a comprehensive evidence/research-based curriculum to address
Design a flag that represents you! What does your flag represent? What do you want people to know about you?
There is never a bad time to teach about our health. You can teach this unit at any time, which is very convenient. And there is no rule saying you can't teach it multiple times! Dental Health Month provides a great opportunity for teachers to hit on overall health lessons. This Health Kit is so
It happens at every level, at every school I’ve ever taught in. A student asks, “can we play freeze dance today?” I’m always torn. I want my students to have fun and …
One of the first messages I got from a student when we first started distance learning was a 4th grader telling me about how her whole family was dancing around the house singing along with the songs I had put together for her assignment. That image has been seared in my mind ever since. What's better for all of us right now than dancing? Today I want to share some ideas for getting students (and maybe their families too) dancing through distance learning. 1. Online Teaching If you're teaching online, there are tons of ways to get students dancing! Share my dance playlist and encourage students to dance along. Of course there's nothing wrong with leaving it there and just encouraging students to have some musical fun, but there are also lots of musical concepts you can review at the same time: Dynamics Tell students to make their dance moves bigger and smaller to match the dynamics of the music- take the opportunity to review some vocabulary when you introduce the lesson! Steady Beat/ Tempo Give students some examples of moves that show the beat and moves that don't, then tell students to show the steady beat with their dance moves. If you pick out a few specific songs that are contrasting tempi, you can also ask students to identify the speed after they move with the beat. Form One of my favorite concepts to practice with dance is form. Have students pick one dance move to use for each contrasting section- whenever the music changes, they change their dance move. Review the concept of form and ask them to identify the form with letters (ABA, etc) after dancing with the music. 2. No Tech For situations where you're not relying on technology, dance is a perfect way to get students dancing! Hand Wash Dance Tell students to choreograph their own dance, incorporating at least one of the hand washing techniques recommended by the WHO. Show this video as inspiration, then encourage them to make up their own! Choice Board Choice boards are always a great idea when you're sending something home and don't know what resources students will have available to them! Here's one you can save and use with your students, or use the ideas to make your own: 3. Virtual Teaching If you're hosting live class sessions online in some way, of course you have more options of doing things more like we would in a regular classroom setting! Even if dance isn't the primary focus of a lesson, taking time for a "dance break" can really help lift everyone's mood and foster a sense of community. If you do choose to have everyone dancing together, keep in mind that there will be a delay with the audio and visual for each person's video. Make sure all of the students mute their audio, and tell everyone to just watch you and not follow each other or they'll get very confused! You may even want to show them how to "pin" your video to show as the big picture on the screen rather than watching everyone in a grid view, depending on the platform you're using. I hope this gives you some ideas to use with your students in this confusing and difficult time! If you've come up with more great ideas to get kids dancing through distance learning, please share them in the comments below. Don't forget, I'm compiling all of my posts for school closures into one page for easy access- head to that page for more ideas:
Check out these 15 graduation songs to use during your end of the year celebrations and slideshows in this blog post.
Doing an elementary musical? The first thing you have to do is hold auditions-- yes, even in elementary school. Check out audition tips here!
Pantomime activities and lessons for elementary, middle school and high school students. Tableaus, sensory pantomimes, clown gags and more.
How do you really feel about your family? The Feeling Test could help.
Hurray! We are back in school and back to making music! This week my students learned how to do the newspaper dance. We started with a section of the paper, unfolding it and laying it flat. This was our "dance floor". Students then could dance in their space. Before we started, each group decided what they considered to be "dancing". Most groups said that to be dancing you had to move your arms and legs in some fashion. And so the dancing began... Now, as fun as that was...it was just getting started. Next, we stepped off the newspaper and folded it in half and stepped on again. After a while, students had to move in very creative ways to stay on the newspaper. We had a great time defining "dance", practing making the fraction 1/2 and movin' and groovin' to some great tunes. With older students we created math sentences like "We are standing in 1/8th of the space that we started on." Some of my favorite tunes to use with this activity: "I Like to Move It" by Crazy Frog "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" by John Denver "Get Jiggy Wit It" by Will Smith "Happy" by Pharrell Williams "Best Years of Our Lives" by Baha Men "The Twist" by Chubby Checker "Goofy Goober Rock" by Spongebob "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles "Everything is AWESOME" from the Lego Movie "Boot Scootin' Boogie" by Brooks and Dunn Are you looking for movement ideas for that first week of school? How about ribbon dancing? You can create really inexpensive ribbons or streamers with plastic table cloths and pencils (or chopsticks or dowel rods or something of similar size. Check out THIS blog post to learn how to make them. Then check out these: This collection includes cards with pictures and cards with word prompts to use with your students. Pass out your scarves, ribbons or streamers and start the music. Then hold up the cards and let students choose how to interpret them. I also love to use other sets of movement cards that don't always have one correct way of being interpreted. I have several sets of Freeze Dance and Creative Movement cards that you might be interested in.
This emotional cheat sheet is based on the wheel chart, but it’s longer, with no misspells or duplicates, and in an easier-to-read format.
Honesty is telling the truth whether to yourself or others. As parents and teachers, we know for a fact that young people sometimes hide the truth to avoid getting into trouble. But by being honest, kids and teens can stay out of trouble and maintain good relationships with those around them. This honesty poster is a helpful tool for teaching young people to be honest. It provides clear examples of acts of honesty, such as admitting one’s mistakes. After teaching this concept, model it at home or in the classroom to encourage everyone to be honest! *This item is an instant digital download. A link to download your files will be emailed to you once payment is confirmed. Want more resources like this? Check out our full catalog of character education posters.
Hello EC Community, Happy Autumn! The activity below is filled with ideas that can be used as a stand-alone exploration, or a supplem...
These fun drama games and activity ideas are sure to bring hours of fun and laughter to the drama team or department. These games can be used as warm-ups,
Free drama ensemble-building game on Drama Notebook. If you are teaching drama to kids, you'll love this collection of 40 Classic Drama Games. PDF download available.
Here's an exercise to practise feelings & emotions. It's useful for young learners. Color the emotions in the colors indicated, count the emotions and write how many there are. - ESL worksheets
