Choices

Rationale:

This thematic unit is written for primary children, ages five through seven. It is designed to be used over a two year span of time. The importance of teaching children care of their own emotional, intellectual, and physical health became evident to me after taking a course entitled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, written by Stephen R. Covey. When I began to explore all the areas of self care and responsibility, I became painfully aware that this subject was far too large to be considered a topical unit. I looked for the thread that held all parts together and realized that "Choices" was the answer. A-HA!! I finally understood the difference between a thematic and a topical unit. I believe this big idea is an important one to explore with children, one which requires a lifetime of awareness and attention.

The big concepts:

1. People are responsible for their own emotional, intellectual, and physical health.

2. People make many choices every day.

3. People get different results from different choices.

4. People don't always have choices.

Necessary components for teaching this theme:

1. Introductory activities at the beginning of each school year. These activities will directly address the issues relating to self care and choices. This will be a time of defining vocabulary and familiarizing children with procedures and practices that will help to teach the concepts.

2. Create a classroom environment conducive to choices. It is very important that the classroom be arranged in a way that encourages children to explore and make choices in the various areas. Organize the classroom with learning centers which make materials easily available to the children.

3. Provide ample opportunities for choice making. Every day there will be times for choosing from learning centers, or choosing from the activities set up by the teacher. Children will become aware of all of the other times during the day they make choices.

4. Provide ample opportunities for self-evaluation of choices made. It is important that children have the opportunity to talk about the choices they made, and how those choices worked out. This would be done individually, in small groups, or sometimes in the large group.

5. Provide the children with tools to help them meet their own emotional needs. Teach them communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution skills.

6. Inform parents about this important theme that will be a big part of their child’s school experience. Provide parents with ideas on a regular basis that will help them to extend this theme into their daily lives.

7. A variety of learning activities will help children make important connections. These activities would be identified by the topical theme they would be assigned to during the two year cycle. This list of activities would of course never be completed, as it would continually grow.

District 97 Curriculum: The theme "Choices" will weave its way through all topical units in the course of the two years, but will specifically be addressed in the following units:

• Getting to Know Myself Who am I? What am I like? Who is responsible for me anyway? What are my strengths? What are my special interests? What do I want to learn to do better?

• Mental and Intellectual Health How can I learn to be aware of and deal with my own feelings? What can I do to expand my knowledge and achievement?

• Friendships Why are friendships so important? How can I learn to develop these relationships? How can I make new friends more easily?

• Families and Family Celebrations Why are families so precious? How are families alike and different?

• Physical Health What do I need to know about body care? Why do I need to think about what I put into my body? What people are available to help me take care of my body?

• Safety How can I keep myself safe? What are the dangers I need to know about? What people are available to help me live safely?

Introductory Activities

Whole Class Activities At the Beginning of the School Year:

• Discuss prior knowledge about what the word choice means.

• Using parent volunteers, have small groups brainstorm things you have choices about and things you don't have choices about. Share as a whole group.

• Name some choices that had results you liked.

• Name some choices that had a result you did not like.

• The first time the class goes to the school library, discuss with the class the choice they will have in checking out a book to take home. Ask them for ideas about how they will go about making their choice. When the books are returned, ask them to evaluate the results of the choice. Talk about other information that could help make a choice.

• Hints for learning centers: When introducing new activities, tell children about what they will be learning if they make that choice. Praise choices, or ask why a certain choice was made. This type of questioning will help children to verbalize the reasons why they made the choice they did. It also helps children to think of reasons prior to their next choice.

• Start a class book about choices. Add a page every time a child made a significant choice that had a good result for him or her.

Activities Adapted for Childhood from Stephen Covey's
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People:

• Show the children the picture of an iceberg in the ocean. Talk about how we only see the tip of it above water. Discuss that people are like that - there is a lot more to each of us that others don't see at first glance. Make two lists: what we see at first glance and what we don't see until we get to know that person better. Decide as a group which characteristics are the most important.

• Ask if any of the children have their own bank accounts. After a discussion about what a bank account is, introduce the analogy of "The Emotional Bank Account". With parent help, using cooperative groupings, name ways you make deposits and withdrawals in the accounts you hold with other people.

• Whole Language Lesson - After a discussion of the various roles people play in their lives, have each child paint a self-portrait. The children will write or dictate what they are, such as: I am a son, I am a brother, I am a nephew, I am a student, I am a grandson, etc.

• At a class meeting, ask if anyone would like to share what are the most important things in their life. This would be hard for small children, but some would be able to provide the modeling, and others would be ready later.

• Individually with each child, set some short term and long term informal goals. After a reasonable amount of time, ask each child to evaluate if they have achieved or have been making progress towards those goals.

• Covey teaches the practice of scheduling your first things first. To involve children in this practice, the class will hold a weekly planning session on Friday for the next week. The children would participate in decisions about what activities are important, and those would be placed into the schedule first.

• At the beginning of some days, as children are working at interest centers, ask them individually to think about what is the most important thing they would like to accomplish today. Do this informally.

• "Seek first to understand, then to be understood". Divide the group into pairs, and practice listening and telling back what the person has said and how they feel.

Activities for Self-Evaluation

• Most self-evaluation at the primary level can be accomplished in an informal way. Ask children to talk about what they are doing, how they like their product, would they like to show the entire class, etc.

• At sharing times, listen for times when children tell about a choice they have made outside of school. Take the opportunity to ask how that choice worked out, what other choices could have been made, etc.

Activities that Teach Communication Skills

• Assign children to small groups, and tell them we are going to play a listening game. Ask children to talk with each other about a topic you name ( such as what you choose to do in your spare time, or what you like to do with a grandparent, a favorite book, etc.). In the larger group, allow children to tell about what someone else said.

• Teach the children how to resolve conflicts using the Johnson and Johnson model from their cooperative learning information. In this model, children stand on a mat facing each other. They are far apart and the following words are written on the mat: I want. . . I feel . . . The reason is . . . My understanding of you is . . . Maybe we should try . . .Let's choose and shake! Each child in turn takes a step and completes the phrase he is standing on.

• After teaching the Johnson model for conflict resolution, do some role playing to act out the process of solving problems between two people. After role playing, make sure the children know this mat is available for times when they want to resolve a problem with another person in the class.

• After a dispute has occurred and has been successfully resolved, informally review the events of the dispute in chronological order. Write it down in order. Talk with the group about points in the order of events when someone could have made a different choice that would have changed the result.

Sample Learning Activities Related to Topical Units

(Topic to be correlated with is in parentheses)

• (Getting to Know Myself) Make a large class book about hobbies that various children in the class have. Each child could draw or glue in articles that best illustrate his hobby. Discuss with the group how a hobby is something a person usually chooses because of a special interest.

• (Getting to Know Myself) Brainstorm things you like to do in your leisure or free time at home. Discuss all the options available to a child when they have "nothing to do". Reinforce that leisure is special because they can make their own choice of how to spend their time.

• (Getting to Know Myself) Read We Are All Alike, We Are All Different by the Cheltenham Elementary School Kindergartners. Make a class big book of our own about the topic.

• (Health) Discuss the reasons why parents will not allow you to choose all the food you eat. Why do they insist you eat vegetables?

• (Health) Compare and contrast two meals - one nutritious and one unhealthy.

• (Health) In cooperative groupings, construct a food pyramid using pictures.

• (Health) Brainstorm ways people get exercise. Pick several that children generally like and make a graph to determine which is the most popular form of exercise for this class.

• (Health) Make a class mural about the types of exercise each child believes is one of the best ones for him. This helps each child get into the habit of thinking in terms of what is a good choice for him and him alone.

• (Health) Read the story Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat. Discuss how Gregory didn't like the things his parents wanted him to eat. Create a collage of objects that Gregory did and didn't like to eat.

• (Safety) Role play what to do if a stranger approaches you. Use the discussion pictures and materials available in the adopted District 97 Personal Safety Kit for K-1.

• (Safety) Invite the Oak Park I-Search Social Worker to do the regular presentation related to personal safety.

• Read the story Stay Safe, Play Safe by Barbara Seuling. As you read each section which describes a safety rule, ask the children what other possible choices might be. What would the results of those be?

• (Families) Discuss the importance of showing your family members how important they are to you. Allow each child to prepare a gift from various art supplies for family members to show them that they are important.

• (Farm) Enjoy the story The Little Red Hen . After reading the story, list the choices the other animals had, and what their choice was. How did they like the result? Was the Little Red Hen right in not allowing them to share the bread? What do you think would have happened if any of the animals would have made a different choice.

• (Farm) After reading the big book

• Mrs. Wishy Washy, ask the children to identify the choice the animals made after Mrs. Wishy Washy went into the house. Ask how the animals felt about their choice. Ask how Mrs. Wishy Washy would feel about their choice.

• (Farm) After reading the big book Who Will Be My Mother?, (Wright Group) ask the children what type of a person they think the boy was. What was the choice the boy made? What other choices did the boy have? What choice would you have made in this situation.

• (Physical Health) Teach the Here's Looking at You 2000 progrm in it's entirety. This excellent program relates to drug and alcohol prevention.

• (Safety) Take a field trip to the Oak Park Fire Station to learn about fire safety. Discuss things the firefighters taught that would be safe or unsafe choices relating to fire.

• (Friendship) Enjoy the story Timothy Goes to School by Rosemary Wells. Discuss with the group other choices Timothy could have made other than being sad and influenced by the wrong person.

• (Reptiles) Read the story The Foolish Tortoise, by Richard Buckley. Have the children identify the choice the tortoise made. How did he like the result of his choice?