We Are Special

In social studies and in reading, 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.

The Rainbow Fish activity allowed us to learn lots about each other.  The students enjoyed sharing their glyphs with each other and finding the similarities and differences.  Besides allowing the students an opportunity to get to know each other better the glyphs also gave me insight into the students' preferred learning styles.  It looks like I will be incorporating a lot of art, music, and movement into lessons this year!