No to Bullies & Yes to Buddies

This Friday is Anti=Bullying Day in my county.  I have been infusing that theme throughout many of my lessons this week. 

My teaching buddy-

(room neighbor/friend/vent buddy/anything else you can think of)

and I talked about the need to focus on the severity of bullying. 

We wanted to make sure the students recognize that bullying is something that happens over and over and over again   We wanted them to realize that if someone calls them a name one time, yes that is a poor decision, but that is not bullying.  For 7 & 8 year olds this can be a difficult concept.  We didn’t want 40 second graders walking around the school saying they are bullied. 

Any book, video clip, or character we introduced we referred to their bad decisions as bullying behaviors.that way we never referred to the characters as bullies since we are only seeing them for a snippet of time and it would be hard to classify them as a bully.

Here is a great site where I grabbed some of my activities or where I saw great ideas and tweaked them to fit my kiddos.

Elementary Counseling Site

I began the week by showing the Pixar Birds film.  You can find it on You Tube by searching Pixar Birds Film.

I first let them watch the film for enjoyment, so they could get the sillies out

Then we discussed what we saw in the film.  There are MANY instances of bullying behaviors throughout the clip from all of the birds. 

I gave my kiddos dry erase markers and a buddy.

I replayed the film 3 times and let them write any instances of bulling behaviors on the desk.  They thought this was the COOLEST thing EVER!  Little did they know a wipe would erase it right off.  (BTW they have asked me about a hundred trillion times when they can write on their desks again… definitely a great motivator/reward!)

After discussing everything we saw, I used the “What Would You Do?” activity idea from the Elementary Counseling site.  I recreated my own in order to give the kids a more structured activity that including writing and illustrating.

Click HERE to download.

For the rumors activity, I HIGHLY recommend using Mr. Peabody’s Apple. 

For the complaining and arguing activities, I recommend Arthur’s Desk Wars.  You can find this on You Tube. 

For the teasing activity, I recommend Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun.  I LOVE this book! 

In addition to discussing teasing with this book, we also discussed how unique we all are and how important it is to be yourself no matter what. 

I created an organizer for students to share what makes them unique.  Then, since our whole week has been based around the birds, I created a bird and each student decorated them in their own unique way.  Here’s how they turned out!

Click HERE to download.

I also turned the word bully into buddy on the board and it has become a space to write what a buddy is and what a buddy would do. 

The kids are LOVING it and so am I!

Here is what our hallway work display looks like so far.  We are continuing to add student work throughout the week! Totally inspired by the Birds Film.