Today we read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.
In it, a little girl is teased because her name is so different from the other children's. It was amazing for me to watch the expressions on the students faces as Chrysanthemum "bloomed" or "wilted" with each comment that was made about her name; these first graders are so sensitive!
After the story, I had the class form a circle and I showed them the red heart that I had cut out of butcher paper. I asked the students to share examples of things that other people could say or do (like making fun of a name) that would "crumple" our heart, just like Chrysanthemum's. As the kids listed things like "you can't play with me because you're too tall," or "you can't be my friend because I already have a best friend," we passed the heart and everyone got a chance to crumple it a little more. By the time the heart made its way around the circle, it was unrecognizable.
After the story, I had the class form a circle and I showed them the red heart that I had cut out of butcher paper. I asked the students to share examples of things that other people could say or do (like making fun of a name) that would "crumple" our heart, just like Chrysanthemum's. As the kids listed things like "you can't play with me because you're too tall," or "you can't be my friend because I already have a best friend," we passed the heart and everyone got a chance to crumple it a little more. By the time the heart made its way around the circle, it was unrecognizable.
Next, I used an example from the story about how other students' words helped Chrysanthemum "bloom." Again, I asked the kids around the circle to share examples -- but this time they were saying things that could "smooth" the heart. As your kiddos listed things like, "I like your shirt today," and "if you don't have anyone to play with on recess, you can meet me by the swings!" -- I felt my OWN teacher heart bloom! How precious! By the time the heart made its way around the circle this time, it was almost completely smoothed out. At the end of this lesson, we observed that even though the nice comments smoothed out the crumpled heart, the wrinkles did not completely fade. One student was even able to verbalize that sometimes just one mean comment lasts longer than a bunch of nice comments -- WOW!
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In order to remind us of this experience, we decided that we should keep the big red heart somewhere in our classroom. But before we hung it up, we knew that we had to do something to fix it! Before the lesson was over, I handed each student a bandaid and gave them the chance to write their name on it if they wanted to commit to helping heal "crumpled" hearts. All 26 kiddos took the opportunity to do this and it was an incredibly moving experience.
Once our big heart was healed, the kids each completed a worksheet that they can take home as a reminder of today's lesson and how we have all promised to help heal crumpled hearts. This paper would be a great thing to hang on the fridge as a constant reminder and source of motivation for your first grader.
Way to go, Frog Room!
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