We Are Special

In social studies, we are starting a unit on making friends.  This week we discussed how being a good friend starts with being kind to ourselves.  In addition to learning the song above, we read the wonderful book Rainbow Fish (click on the title to see a video of the book read aloud).  In Rainbow Fish, the fish has all these sparkly scales, but he is not truly happy until he shares that special part of himself with others.  We talked about the things that makes each of us special, our likes and dislikes, and our similarities and differences.  We even made a glyph to represent some of these things.

Our fish glyphs followed these directions.  The students had to color the fish to represent his/her different characteristics.

When the students were finished we discussed how respectful students and friends are good listeners.  We practiced good listening and speaking skills by sharing our glyphs with a partner.

The Rainbow Fish activity allowed us to learn lots about each other.  We kept the learning going by playing a game called "Find a Friend Who..."  In this activity, the students had a list of items like "likes to dance" and "lost a tooth."  The students walked around with clipboards.  They had to shake a friends hand and then find a category the friend could sign.  The goal was to find a different friend to sign for every category.  So fun!