KINDERGARTEN LESSON #2 Join in and Play

KINDERGARTEN LESSON #2~Join in and Play Recess Queen By Alexis O’Neill

MESSAGE TO ABC READERS The Join in and Play lesson teaches children about being a friend, and playing together. It teaches them the rules for getting along, being a good sport, and cooperating with others. Asset Information: To build developmental assets, we must create “thousands of moments in the life of a child when they feel valued, respected and known”. • #3: Other Adult Relationships • #15: Positive Peer Interaction and Influence • #18: Out-of-Home Activities • #33: Interpersonal Skills • #34: Cultural Competence • #35: Resistance Skills • #36: Peaceful Conflict Resolution • #37: Personal Power • #39: Self-Esteem

In our lesson today, our goal is to: • Teach the students how to be a friend • Teach the students how to play nicely with each other. • Have students learn different tools to join in while other friends are playing

LESSON Conversation Starter: Before you start, sit in a chair in the front of the room. Have the students be seated on the rug in front of you. Most Kindergarten rooms are set up so that the children have assigned spaces or colors in rows on the rug.

Welcome to your classrooms second visit! This time around will be similar to the first. Continues to invite the students to build a relationship with you. You may spend a little more time introducing yourself and remind the students that you will see them every month as a caring adult. Continue to learn your students’ names and use the name tags Project Cornerstone has provided. Use the students’ names as often as possible. And go over the ABC Rules or classroom rules. If you bring the ABC Rules Sign, you can ask the teacher to post it in a special ABC area.

Review the ABC rules with the students. 1. Raise your hand. 2. Listen to each other. 3. It is OK to say “I don’t know.” 4. When telling stories, use words like he, she, a friend, a boy, a girl etc.

Your voice can be one of the most effective ways to get student’s attention. Listening is a hard skill to learn and often students need lots of practice. When working with the students, use your voice in different ways. When you want to get their attention, start whispering. This brings down the tone in the classroom and piques their interest. Read with emotion—sound sad if the character is sad and mad if the character is mad. You can even use funny voices to keep them interested. Add gestures to punctuate your words. By varying your voice and using gestures, you will engage the students and make the session more fun.

Let the students know if they are being good listeners. You might say, “Good job, everyone! I also see I have lots of people sitting crisscross applesauce with hands in lap, mouths closed, and eyes on me.”

TIPS: *Use the saying crisscross applesauce and snow ball hands. *Learn the teachers saying to get the childrens attention. I.E. say "1, 2" and the kids reply "eyes on you." *Sing a song to learn names and break the ice with the kids. Remember they are young and fun! *Try a gimmick. Walk in with huge dinosaur feet or Mickey hands and pretend you don’t know you have them on. (Arianna and Bridget have many gimmicks you may borrow  ) *Try using a puppet. It doesn’t have to talk it can just agree or disagree with you. You can have your puppet be silly or quiet. (there will be tips on using puppets at the end of the lesson plan.)

Read the Book: Now are you ready to read a new book. This month’s book is called Recess Queen by Alexis O’Neill Discussions: You may want to read the book through once and then go back and ask questions or you can ask the questions as you go. You could also put sticky notes in the book so you know where you wanted to stop and ask the questions. In case they are having a hard time paying attention, the more important questions are in bold text. 1. What are some things you like to play yourself? 2. What are some things you like to play with friends? 3. What can you do when you want to join in and play with others? 4. If you see someone playing alone, what can you say? 5. Have you ever invited someone to play? What did you say? Why is it fun to play games with other people? 6. If you need help joining in, what can you do? 7. Have you ever been sad because someone wouldn’t play with you? What did you do? 8. What does it mean to cooperate? How are the children cooperating? What are some ways you can cooperate? 9. What are these children doing to get along? What is respect? How does taking turns show respect? (When you show respect, you show that you think they are important.) At this point, the students have been doing lots of listening and may be getting restless. Use a technique every lesson to help the students *Yoga * wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle and STOP!! Good for transitions *Dance it out

GROUP ACTIVITIES Choose one to two activities that you feel will work best with the students in your class.

What Classmates Play 1. Tell the students you want them to think of their favorite outside game. It can be a school yard activity, inside fun or a neighborhood game. Have them tell you their responses as a brainstorming activity before the game. Write the down on the white board 2. Have children stand up and form a circle. (You may want to go outside and stand around a painted circle on the black top. Define the activity space before starting the game.) a. Practice a signal to get everyone’s attention: clap your hands twice; raise your hands in the air, whistle, etc. b. This will be the signal you will use to ask for quiet and good listening. 3. Walk around the circle and touch one child on the shoulder. That child stands in the center of the circle while the others put on their listening ears. 4. Ask the child in the center to say their favorite activity, such as playing tag. Then have the child call out, “I have lots of classmates who like to play tag at recess.” 5. All the students who like to play tag at recess should jump in and join the child in the middle of the circle. Look around the inside circle and comment, “Wow look at all the classmates you can play tag with!” 6. Next, use your signal. Ask kids to move back to the edge of the circle. Repeat until most of the students have had a turn to be in the middle. If it is a big class you could divide the group into smaller circles. If someone chooses an idea not as popular, it might help if you jump in to generate more enthusiasm. You may need to help the child in the center come up with some ideas (building with blocks, playing on the swings, card games, etc.). As they play the game, help them notice all the students who enjoy the same activities and how they can play with lots of different playmates at school and home. Variation: You will need a ball. Have all the students stand in a circle. Have one student say what they like to play. All those who like to do the same do a simple response like raise their hand, clap hands, thumbs up etc. Then the student with the ball rolls it to someone else.

Room ___Plays Together This activity requires the following materials: • Slips of paper with children’s names written on them • Drawing paper • Crayons or markers, pencils or pens. 1. Place the name slips in a bag or other container. 2. Have each child draw the name of another child in the group. You might want to pair the students ahead of time and match those that don’t know each other well with the teacher’s help. 3. Say, “We are going to make a mural that shows how we can play with our classmates. On your paper, draw a picture of yourself playing with the student whose name you drew.” 4. When children are done drawing, have them write (or dictate for you to write) a description of what they are doing with their classmate in their picture. The pictures may depict actual or imagined play. Each child will be featured in two pictures: one drawn by the child and one by a classmate. 5. Display the pictures as a mural and label “We Play Together in Room ___”

Friends and Classmates Role Play Use the scenes in the book for ideas. Divide the students into groups of 2- 3 and have them act out scenarios as you call them out. 1. Ask someone to play. 2. Ask if you can join in with someone playing. 3. Ask to have a turn. 4. Invite someone to play with you. 5. Share your toys. Have the students verbalize what they would say in each of these instances. For example: 1. Do you want to play? 2. What are you doing? May I play? 3. Can I have a turn? 4. Would you like to play with me? 5. That looks like fun, can I try too? Can I use it when you are done?

*You could also line your whole class in two rows. Row A and Row B. *Role play how to start a conversation to join in and play. Role play being left out and how that feels. Try Role playing with no talking (for second language speakers).

Build something together and then play it You could build a small obstacle course (TK classrooms have the tools for one that you could borrow). Have each child put one piece of the course together until it’s complete and then play it together. You could also build a block tower or town, a mouse trap, etc.

TK Activities

*Dress Up Role play- to break the ice, bring lots of different dress up items (you may borrow my arsenal) Have the kids sit down and explain that we are going to calmly choose some items to wear for dress up and they we are going to role play how it would feel to play together and to be excluded. Try to get them to dress up quickly. Send the kids up two at a time. If have time have them make a circle and ask different games kids like to play and have them step into the circle if they agree. They can call them out too. Undress quickly.

*Pumpkin Fan- Pre-cut some pumpkin shapes and add a popsicle stick to the bottom and talk about how the children felt in the book when the recess queen was being mean and have them draw a face of how that would make them feel. Then talk about the end and how it felt when everyone played together and draw a face on what that would look like. *Role Play with stuffed animals/puppets CLOSING Three Minute Huddle

Three Minute Huddle This is to help the students remember what they learned and should only take about 3 minutes. It is done at the end of the lesson.

Join in and Play RAP By Julie Conlisk Well I saw some kids playing tag the other day, I ran up to them and said I would like to play.

They said to me, "We don't want to play with you!" Then I felt sad. I did not know what to do.

So I said to them, "This is not how it should be", "I want you to listen to me carefully"

If someone comes up and wants to join the game, don’t say “NO”, that is pretty lame!

We are the Kinders and this is what we say, "Everybody join in and play"!

Ideas to use in your lesson

 Use sight words, letters or numbers that your class is learning at the time.  Talk about what an Author and Illustrator is  Have the children turn to your neighbor and tell then what you like to play (when time is winding down count down 5-1 so they know they need to hurry up and stop talking).  Write down what they like to play after they talk to their partner on the white boards  Bring in Bucket Book Language  Talk about the word RESPECT!  Talk about children’s tones. How you can say one word two different ways and it mean different things (big thing for this age!)  You can have a word that when the kids hear it they give you a thumbs up or a heart or a wiggle of their nose when they hear it to make sure they are listening to the story. Like “friend”.  Make sure you play with any child that is left out or no-one joins. Using a Puppet *I used a puppet in my class visit after I attended the Lead meeting at Project Cornerstone headquarters, and it was a huge success!! If you feel like you can pull it off I would highly recommend it! Here are some tips-  Start simple- If you have never used a puppet before, begin simple, use a silent class mascot puppet. It will give you a chance to experiment a bit and get comfortable with a puppet on your hand before you start using puppets to teach content.  Practice with your puppet in the mirror and with your kids- How can you make the puppet feel “alive”. Rehearse small, realistic movements rather than large frantic movements. An overly “bouncy” puppet can be difficult to watch and connect with. I practiced with my children’s playmates during a play date before I went in.  Plan a few gimmicks for your puppet- Is your puppet able to scrunch up his face? That will be funny if you can build in some reasons for a grumpy/scrunched up face. Can your puppet pretend to drop things? Kids love when a teacher has to continually pick up items. Gimmicks will help the children feel connected to the puppet. I have a shy snake that can only come out if it’s really quiet to play quiet games. I also have a loud Dinosaur that the kids need to “shush” if he gets to loud. But he comes out for silly songs and dances.  Keep your puppet alive- One mistake people make is letting the puppet “go to sleep” while it’s on their hand. When you are talking to children, make sure to keep making small, gentle movements with your puppet so it’s “alive” while in front of the children. Also it’s best to avoid taking the puppet off in view of the children or store it out on a shelf where it looks like a dead body. Find a bag or box to serve as your puppets “house” and make sure you put on/take off your puppet in that “house”  Choose your puppets carefully- Sometimes the most beautiful puppets aren’t the easiest to manipulate. Puppets come to life through movements, so you want your puppets to be easy to move and animate. Choose a puppet that can have multiple personas.  A response to “Is it real?”- young children will repeatedly say things like, “It’s not a real dog!” or “Is it really alive?” They are in the developmental stage where the line between reality and fantasy is blurred and they are trying to figure it out. You can respond like, “It’s a puppet, but we use our imagination to make it move and talk. When we pretend a puppet is real we can have a lot of fun, so let’s pretend that it’s a real dog for right now.”  Dealing with fear of puppets- Every now and then you might encounter a child who is fearful of puppets. In this case, it’s often helpful to let the child see the puppet when it’s not on your hand. You can tell the child about the puppet and explain it’s not real it’s just pretend and share how you make it come alive. If the fear continues sit then farther away from the puppet. Tips for talking with Puppets  Plan and practice (when getting started)- You don’t need to memorize a script but do take practice what you plan to say in the mirror.  Choose a puppet voice carefully- Give your puppet their own “voice” but make sure it’s easily understandable to the children.  Don’t try to be a ventriloquist- The kids don’t care if your mouth is moving anyway.  Be funny without being sarcastic  Choose puppets with a movable mouth- It’s fun to work with a talking puppet when you can make the mouth move.