Stories we have read: Brave Irene, by William Steig, is a great story of a girl who faces a snow storm to deliver a dress to the duchess. She is successful despite the adversities that face her mission. The students were on the rug listening to the story and cheering for her, chanting, "you can do it!" It was super cute and fun how engaged they were. Another story was The Very Busy Spider, by Eric Carle. The spider is so focused on the work of building a web with all the animals wanting to visit and do things together. It takes focus and perseverance to keep at a task that may be difficult or require concentration, when others want your attention or to play with you.
Bike On, Bear!, by Cynthea Liu, was a great story the students could relate to about riding a bike without training wheels. The new park only aloud bikes with no training wheels to ride there. Suddenly, when a situation came about, Bear was able to face his fears and persevere to ride the bike successfully.The Girl And The Bike, by Mark Pett, is a new favorite of mine on this topic (and kindness). It is a wordless book. The girl walks down a street and sees a bike she wants. She saves all her money, sells lemonade, sells her toys, and even does chores for the neighbor to earn the money to buy the bike. When she has enough, she realizes the bike is no longer for sale. She decides to buy her little brother a trike instead. She is happy to know he is happy. She goes home and finds the bike had been purchased for her with a big bow on it. She is so happy. The students enjoyed this knowing that even when we persevere, sometimes we don't actually get the result we were hoping for or thinking would be the outcome.
Stuck, by Oliver Jeffers, is super funny. The students really enjoyed reading this book, and asked to have it read again. The boy gets his kite stuck in the tree and has to persevere to figure out how to get it out of the tree. In the end, he is successful. It is such a simple way to see perseverance and success. The end of January is report cards for us and with that comes all the assessments. I really encouraged the students to try their best and persevere through the interviews with me and show their great learning. Everyone made "adequate progress". 13 students are at benchmark for reading this time of year, meaning they are doing some sort of reading, 12 students have mastered all the math skills for this time of the year, and 12 had their writing sample with a passing score. I was impressed to see so much progress with only half the year. I know they really tried their best and continue to on a regular basis.
We made a poster of what perseverance looks and sounds like. Students said it looks like keep going when it is hard, understanding that what they are doing doesn't have to be perfect and that asking for help is okay. They also decided that it sounds like positive self talk such as "I can do all things if I try", "I can be brave", "I believe in myself", and "be strong". I love the words that they came up with to describe how it would be meaningful to them to encourage themselves as well as words they can use to encourage others. I have heard the students using these phrases to each other. The students did some writing on perseverance. They wrote about a time they showed perseverance and how it made them feel. Ideas ranged from riding a bike, to being strong when a grandparent's visit ended, playing a soccer game and trying new foods. One said completing a class assignment that was challenging and learning to read. I am proud of their ideas and creativity to challenge themselves to try new things.
I gave the students an "I Spy" or tiny words to find. They used magnifying glasses to see the words and make a list. It was really fun and they worked really hard to find them all. The students worked in small groups all on their own and helped each other out. It was neat to see the fair play in action again as well as the perseverance to find all the words. When we were done many asked to do this again. Love when they ask for work to do that is challenging.
Lastly, I got some new science hands-on materials that I let the students learn from. I told them the goal was to get the ball from one end of the track to the other using all the pieces. I let them work together to figure out how to make it happen. I was amazed. They worked in groups of three, connected the track, used chairs as supports and realized that the track had to have one end higher than the other. This was not understood by everyone in all the groups. Once a system was created with problem solving, working together, sharing suggestions, and trial and error, the students made a track and the ball was able to roll from one end of the track to the end.
Students also had some plastic pieces that snapped together like a puzzle that could be made into a 3-D structure. I asked them to think about building a neighborhood. They built a bank, school, hospital, library and houses. The pieces were a bit difficult to snap together and after some frustration, most students were able to build a structure and determine which pieces were needed to make the structure complete. It was really fun to see them work together.
I have enjoyed seeing the students remind each other to persevere and keep trying on activities and assignments that are challenging. They are good to each other and remind others of the values Classroom Champions is teaching them. We often still have conversations about perseverance and not giving up.
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