Activity 1: (20 minutes) WHAT IS A COMMUNITY?

Read the definition of a community from the slides. Invite students to think about all of the different communities that they belong to, including the examples provided.

Explain that we can build strong communities by being friendly, kind, and respectful of others. Discuss the terms “friendly,” “kind,” and “respectful” using questions similar to these:

• What does it mean to be friendly?
• Can you think of a time when someone was friendly to you?
• What does it mean to be kind?
• Can you think of a time when someone was kind to you?
• What does it mean to have respect?
• Can you think of a time when someone showed you respect?

Have a discussion:

• What does it mean to be part of a community? (EQ)
• What communities are you a part of? (EQ)

Explain that living in a community can help our well-being. When people in our communities work together to help everyone feel safe and respected, we all feel cared for and can help us live healthy and happy lives.

Read the book The Big Umbrella by Amy Blue Bates or watch the read-aloud video, “The Big Umbrella : Kids Books Read Aloud by Books With Blue” by Books With Blue from 0:27 to 2:03. Emphasize how the umbrella continued to expand so that no one was left out in the rain.

Open an umbrella and invite 1 student to stand under it with you. If it is big enough, invite other students to join you and see how many you can fit under the umbrella. Ask the students to help you brainstorm ideas of how to make the umbrella bigger (e.g., drape sheets/blankets over the top of the umbrella, lift the umbrella up high).

Extension: Play the song “Under the Big Umbrella” by Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could. Have a dance party together under the big umbrella.

Activity 2: (15 minutes) OUR CLASS FAMILY

Prior to this activity, consider a simple tradition that you would like to implement in your classroom, similar to a tradition that families share. This tradition should help students feel like they belong to a special place. Some ideas include:

• Create a special greeting that you use every day.
• Develop a special hand signal or handshake to use when saying hello and goodbye at the beginning and end of the day.
• Choose a stuffed animal and introduce it to students as the class mascot. Talk about the characteristics of that animal and how the students can emulate similar characteristics in your class. Assign students the responsibility to care for the class mascot, alternating each day.
• Write a customized cheer and rehearse it often until the children can repeat it without help.

Explain that just your class is a community, another kind of community is a family. Draw a large Venn diagram on the whiteboard, labeling the circles “family community” and “class community.” Briefly explain how each of the parts of a Venn diagram work (this graphic organizer helps to take notes about how things are similar and different).

Ask students to share similarities and differences between what a family and a class community look like. Record student answers in the Venn diagram. (Teacher Tip: Use simple pictures instead of words, if possible.) Some possible answers include that family members live at home whereas peers are at school, both places include caring people, and we are expected to be respectful in both places.)

Extension: Read the book, Our Class is a Family by Sharon Olsen or watch the read-aloud video, “Our Class is a Family Read Aloud” by Vooks from 0:30 to 4:45. Have a discussion:

• What examples were in the story of people making others feel safe and welcome?
• How can we do that same thing in our classroom?

Have a discussion:

• What do we want our classroom community to feel or look like?
• What can we do to make our classroom like a family? (EQ)

Introduce the tradition that you have chosen to use in your classroom (see list above). Use the remainder of the time to explain the tradition and help students practice the tradition, emphasizing what a special place your classroom is.

Activity 3: (30+ minutes): TREASURE HUNT

Prior to this activity, snap and print off a picture of each student in your classroom. Identify different spaces around the room or school that you would like students to become familiar with. Post 1–2 student pictures at each of these locations.

Explain that, just like a house, classrooms have special spaces for different activities. At home you might have a spot for sleeping, eating, or brushing your teeth. Similarly, at school, there are special places for reading, playing, and storing your things. Different spaces at school have different uses and different rules.

Students will now participate in a treasure hunt, where the student pictures represent the treasure (because they are valuable). Choose 1 student at a time to look around your classroom to see if they can find a picture of another student. As each picture is retrieved, practice saying the name of the student in the picture. Then emphasize the place in the classroom where the picture was found. Remind students of the following for each space:

1. The rules or procedures you should follow in the space.
2. What materials are found in the space.
3. Describe what appropriate behavior looks like in the space.

Repeat this activity until you have found every picture around the room and explained every part of the classroom that you wanted to highlight.

If time permits, have a discussion to review the answers to these questions:

• Where can you go when you need to relax and get calm?
• Where are the spaces where it is okay to play noisily?
• Where can you go when you want to be creative and make things?
• Where can you go when you want to move your muscles or wiggle?
• What do you do when you need to go to the bathroom?
• What do you do when you are not feeling well?
• What do you do when you are hungry?
• What can you do when you are feeling sad or lonely?

Activity 4: (20 minutes) GET-TO-KNOW-YOU GAMES

This activity involves some get-to-know-you games. Feel free to substitute with an alternate get-to-know-you activity, based on your students’ needs and interests.

Prior to this activity, obtain a picture of each child in your classroom. Laminate the photos for durability. Draw a line down the middle of the board and post each picture to the left of the line with tape or a magnet.

Game #1: Welcome Song

Using the pictures posted on the board, test your students to see which names they know. Complete the following steps for each picture on the board:

1. Hold up a student picture and have the class raise their hand if they know the name of this person. Share the name with the whole class.
2. Place the student’s picture on the right side of the whiteboard if they are present. If they are absent, move their picture to the left side and skip the welcome song.
3. If the student is present, have them stand up and smile as the class sings the welcome song to them. Encourage the rest of the class to wave and smile back to practice being friendly.
4. Repeat these steps for each student in your class. (Teacher Tip: You can repeat this routine every morning to take attendance and help your students learn each other’s names.)

Welcome Song (Sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat)

Stand up ________.

Let us see your smile!

We’re so glad you came today

and won’t you stay a while?

Game #2: Toe-to-Toe

Have students stand around the room. For each round, you will ask a question that students will discuss with a new partner. To find each partner, students will pick someone new as you count down from 10. By the time you reach “0,” students should be standing “toe-to-toe” with someone new. Have students begin by introducing themselves, then they will discuss the question that you read aloud. Encourage students to talk to a different partner for each question and to try to meet someone that they do not know very well. (Teacher Tip: Before beginning the game, have students practice walking (not running) to a new partner as you count down a few times until they can do that successfully.) Give students about 30 seconds to discuss the question with their partner before counting down again.

Question Examples:

• What is your favorite color? Name something you own that is that color.
• What is your favorite food?
• Name a place you have visited?
• What did you have for breakfast?
• What do you like to play on the playground?
• What is the funniest thing your grownups say or do?
• Do you have a pet? If so, what kind of pet and what is their name?
• What is something that you have learned to do in the last year?

After playing several rounds, have a discussion:

• What is something that you learned about a person in our class?
• How can you get to know people in our class that you do not know very well? (EQ)

Activity 5: (20 minutes) SAME, SAME BUT DIFFERENT

Read the book, Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw or watch the read-aloud video, “Kids Read Aloud: Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw,” by StoryTime with Pleasant Penny from 0:20 to 3:06.

With each new comparison from the storybook, pause and have the students identify how their lived experience does or does not mirror the examples given in the book. (Teacher Tip: If time is short, use comparisons from the slides to summarize the comparisons made in the book.)

To celebrate similarities and differences with students, have them sort themselves into groups based on how they answer each question. For example, when the characters in the book are discussing their homes, pause and discuss the homes of students in the class. Have all the students who live in a house stand together in a group, and all of the students who live in an apartment or other dwelling in another. Count how many students are in each group. Have students discuss which group is bigger, how their houses are different, and how they are the same. Continue reading, questioning, sorting and discussing each example as you read the book.

Have a discussion:

• How are you similar to someone else in our class?
• Why is it important to be the same and different from other people? (EQ)

Activity 6: (15 minutes) GETTING ALONG

Explain that we can create a community where everyone feels loved and accepted. We can do this by being kind and including everyone. Creating a community means we get along. (Teacher Tip: Define the words from the slide that students may not understand. Ask for a couple of students to explain what they just heard in their own words to check for understanding.)

Read the book It’s Mine! by Leo Lionni or watch the read-aloud video, “It’s Mine! by Leo Lionni,” by Grandma Annii from 0:10-4:36. Have a discussion:

• What happened when the frogs were not working together?
• How do you think the other frogs felt when Milton, Rupert, and Lydia shouted, “It’s mine!” and did not want to share with others?
• How did the frogs eventually work together?
• If these frogs were a part of our class, what could we do to help them understand how to get along better?
• What can we do in our class to make sure that everyone feels loved and included? (EQ)

Invite 3 students to show the class how to play a game of leapfrog:

1. Student A curls up face down into a small ball on the floor.
2. Student B carefully puts their hands on student A’s back and leaps over student A, like a frog. Student B should croak an affirmation to help them remember kind things they can do to make sure everyone feels loved and included (e.g. “I am kind,” “I can share,” “We work together,” etc.)
3. Student B curls up into a ball in front of Student A.
4. Student C carefully hops over Student A and Student B, ending with another croaking affirmation.

Once the class understands how to play the game and how to share affirmations, sort them into groups of 3–5 and give them time and space to play little games of leapfrog around the room. (Teacher Tip: For additional safety, take your class to the gym or outside to play.)