Pebble Promises (pdf)

Lesson Plan Subject: Health

Grade: One

Content (Topic): Pebbles of Promise Strand: Social Relationships Topics: Making Friends, Relationships in the Classroom Concepts: Being a Good Listener, Making it a Good Place for Learning Foundational Objectives: • Students will better understand the basic elements of social and emotional well-being (PSVS) • Students will treat themselves and others with respect (PSVS) • Students will develop attitudes necessary for healthy living (PSVS)

Learning Objectives: Students will: • Recognize the need for healthy personal relationships with members of their family, friends and others in the community • Develop their interpersonal skills • Increasingly accept responsibility for themselves and others • Value friendship

Assessment: • Participation in the making of a promise • Nature of the promise made (Will it contribute to a positive space for learning?) Common Essential Learnings (CELs): • Communication • Personal and Social Values and Skills (PSVS) Prerequisite Learning: N/A Major Resources: “A Pebble” poem by Rick Masters Lesson Preparation Equipment/materials: • Pebbles (1 each member of the classroom) • Lg. clear bowl • Overhead • “A Pebble” by Rick Masters • Paper for each member of the classroom • Books from “Additional Resources” for book look Advanced Preparation: N/A

Presentation Set: (10 min) • Introduce some scenarios to students: How would you feel if… o Ex. You kept trying and trying to tell your classmate or your teacher something important, but he/she wouldn’t listen to you. o Ex. Your teacher asked you to choose a partner, but everyone in the class that you asked said no, they did not want to be partners with you. o Ex. At recess, a classmate kept on pushing you when you walked by. Even though the problem was never solved, you still had to sit next to this person. • Ask students: If that happened, how would you be feeling? Would it make it easier or harder for you to focus on your schoolwork? • What happens if somebody pushes you? Do you want to push them back? If you are feeling sad and bad, do you think that might have an effect on the other people around you? What if I (the teacher) was feeling tired and angry and I was having a bad day. I might be acting really grumpy, and maybe I would get angry with you for something small. Would my actions change how you might feel? • Our actions affect the people around us. • Introduce and read the poem “A Pebble” by Rick Masters • Think of a pond of water. When you touch the water, what happens? (Use the bowl of water to show the ripples that are created) When I touch the water in one spot, ripples are created, and those ripples make more ripples, and those ripples make more ripples, until the whole bowl of water has been affected by me touching that one spot. • Our actions work like these ripples. When we do something, it can affect all the people around us. Development: (20 min) • Tell students that we are going to make promises to one another in order to make our classroom a good place to be. • Show students the pebbles. I call these pebbles “pebbles of promise” because they will represent the promises that we make to each other. • Should you ever break a promise? A promise is something that lasts forever. • Ask students to think of a promise they could make to their classmates and to us that could help our classroom be a nice place to be (Take possible answers and write on the board) • Ask students to write down their promises • When students are finished writing down their promises, re-focus the students • Explain that we are going to tell each other our promises. A promise is not something that should be broken. We are making promises to each other about our classroom community. • When you come up to read your promise, you may take a “pebble of promise” and drop it into the bowl. (Teacher demonstrates reading a promise and dropping a pebble in). • Ask for volunteers. • After the third promise pebble is dropped in, draw students’ attention to the ripples. See? Each of our pebbles, and each of our promises, touches all of the other pebbles when the water ripples out to touch all of the pebbles

Closure: (15 min) • When every student has made their promise, thank the students. Show them where the pebbles of promise will stay in the classroom • If a student is forgetting their promise and needs help remembering, they can be directed (by themselves, by the teacher, or by a friend) to the “Promise Pond” and read their promise to remember how they will help make the classroom a nice place to be. • Invite students to do a “book look” with a partner, focusing on books that highlight social relationships, friendship, promise making, etc. (See “Additional Resources”) **Possible promises made by grade one students might be: o Not to touch o To Listen o To be a good friend o To include everybody **If students are having trouble thinking of a promise, ask them to think of something that they would want someone to promise them. If they don’t like to be touched, maybe they could promise not to touch. Extensions: Promises could be written with permanent marker (two or three words) on larger stones; Students make posters to go along with each promise, which are then hung in the classroom to show a set of “rules” or a “classroom creed”; Display the promises stemming from the poem in the centre. Display the promises and poem near the promise pond which will stay in the classroom. Adaptive Dimension: Students who feel shy about talking in front of the class are invited to say one word of promise (ex. nice, listen) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


I
promise…


I
promise…





I
promise…


I
promise…



 Copy
so
that
there
is
one
 “I
promise…”
sheet
for
 each
classroom
member





A pebble does not enter a pond without a ripple moving out and in time touching every single shell we are all everyone of us in this thing together 
 (Rick Masters)


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





Pebbles
of
Promise







 



 Sample
Student
Promises
Made
by
Grade
Ones:
 • I
promise
to
share
 • I
promise
not
to
touch
 • I
promise
to
be
anyone’s
friend
 • I
promise
to
listen
 • I
promise
to
always
play
with
you
 • I
promise
to
listen
to
your
questions
and
respect
feelings