Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Language Arts Lesson

My language arts lesson that I did was on the book "The Empty Pot". This book took place in China and was about young children and their journey to become Emperor. The Emperor gave each child a seed and told them that the next Emperor would be who ever had the biggest and more beautiful flower. However the Emperor had cooked all of the seeds so none of them grew. But other children switched their seeds and brought back a flower, all expect Ping. Ping demonstrated integrity and honesty and became the next Emperor. After I read this book with my students I had them talk about why it is important to be honest. I had them think of times when they did something and didn't want to tell the truth, but then they did. I had them talk about how it made them feel and if they would tell the truth again. I had them brainstorm different situations where you would tell the truth and why it was important.

My class had never had a class discussion before so there was a lot of facilitation from me, but I think it was a success. The children were really into the book, and took away the message from the book and the lesson.

1 comment:

  1. I love your lesson objective, honesty. I agree how lower level grades need to focus on behavior related lessons than academic lessons due to experiences the students will interfere as they go up a level each year in which they will be interacting more with fellow students in the classroom. I see fights and arguments among kindergarteners and sometimes I hope they are honest about how situations came to be, but it is difficult because no one wants to get into trouble. However, I’m sure that through lessons like yours, students will develop morals in which fights and arguments will decrease and there will be more of sharing and caring.

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