Book Review: The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes

My students have absolutely loved this book. The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett and Gary Rubinstein is a delightful read. In the story, Beatrice Bottomwell is a girl who hasn't made any mistakes for as long as anyone can remember. And she's kind of famous for her perfection. When she finally makes a mistake, she handles it with humor.

This is a great story to read aloud. The kids in all my K-4th grade classes loved it and stayed engaged from beginning to end. Plus, Beatrice's foibles are a silly example of mistakes -- and excellent fodder for discussion about how to handle our own mistakes. Some mistakes are silly and we can laugh at ourselves when we make those mistakes. Other mistakes are a little more serious, but we can still learn from them. Mistakes that hurt others require us to right our wrongs by genuinely apologizing and fixing or replacing what we messed up. We don't want others to think we are disrespectful or mean and righting wrongs is a way to show we are friendly and trustworthy.

I would highly recommend this book to any classroom teacher, counselor or parent as a great discussion starter in how to handle life's inevitable mistakes.

End of the Year

Each year I try to end on a good note with the teachers. They are such a huge part of making my program successful and many of them make sacrifices to their own time in order to reinforce my lesson topics beyond my brief sessions with students.

This year, I took my final lesson time to make a class gift for the teacher. The students used their thumbs and an ink pad to add colorful "leaves" to the tree I created ahead of time. The resulting artwork was attractive and many teachers got teary-eyed when I gave them their gift. This was an activity that was definitely worth the time and effort.

Here is the finished product. Full-disclosure, I got the idea from Pinterest (I'm actually incapable of coming up with good ideas on my own now that I have a Pinterest account!) You can find the original idea here.

Anger balloon

One of my favorite lessons was on the topic of anger. I had a red balloon prepared for each class I taught. I had pre-printed some slips of paper with different physical and behavioral effects of anger on our body. The list included things like:

Heart beats faster than normal
Breathing hard
Cheeks get red and hot
Making fists with my hands
Tight muscles
Feel like yelling
Feel like I can't sit still

During the discussion with the class, I had each student tell me one thing that makes them feel angry. Most students gave examples, like a little brother who won't leave them alone. With each example, I added another puff of air to the balloon. By the time every student shared an answer, the balloon was ready to explode!

Then I talked about how when we are full of anger, it is easy to explode over little things. As I talked, I had a push-pin in my hands. I talked about how small the push-pin is and that it seems like a really small thing. However, all it takes is one small thing to make our anger explode! I gave examples of something that could set off anger, like someone borrowing our pencil without asking or someone stepping in front of us in line. I usually ham it up and pretend to be really angry as I give examples and then I tell them that I just can't hold on to my anger any more and....POP! I pop the balloon. As the balloon explodes, it sends little slips of paper across the classroom area.

After doing this lesson a few times, I did learn a lesson or two. First, prep the students ahead of time for how loud the balloon will be and promise to warn them before you pop it. Tell the students they are allowed to cover their ears if loud noises bother them. Second, give very specific instructions about what to do with the slips of paper. I told the students that they could ONLY pick up a slip of paper if it landed close to them or on them. If they were close to two pieces of paper, they should be prepared to give one of the papers to someone else who is sitting nearby. Under no circumstances should anyone jump up or race to grab a slip of paper.

After the balloon pop, I would have students read what their slip of paper said. If it was a class with poor readers, I would have them hold the paper in the air for me to take and read aloud.

Once we were clear on the negative affects of anger, we read the book Soda Pop Head by Julia Cook. In it, the main character learns some cool-down strategies to keep his anger from exploding. We review these cool-down techniques with another balloon. I blew up a blue balloon, reviewing some of the anger triggers the students had discussed earlier. The anger is the same with both balloons. But, with the blue balloon, I release a puff of air for each of our cool down strategies. In the end, all the air is released. I would take the same push-pin and talk about those little frustrations that triggered the explosion before -- but this time, when I touched the pin to the balloon, nothing happened. The flat balloon was unable to explode when the pin touched it.

It was a very engaging lesson and one the students talked about in later lessons as they talked about handling anger appropriately.

Uniquely the Best

I love teaching kids to accept their differences and to respect each others' uniqueness. One great way to teach this important concept is with a couple of awesome books. The first is one I used with Kindergarten through second grades called Not Your Typical Dragon by Dan Bar-el. In this story the main character is a dragon who cannot make flames, much to the chagrin of his father. However, he can produce things that are needed, like Band-aids. His unique gift helps others.

With third through fourth graders I used the book The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi, which is about a girl who eventually embraces her unique name after moving to a new school. Her name was part of what made her special and unique.

To make the lesson more active, I had the kindergarten through second grade students create a drawing to highlight their best quality. After creating The Best Thing About Me, each student was able to share their drawing with the class.

Third and fourth grades didn't complete the worksheet project. Instead, I had them sit in a circle. I started with one student and handed him a Koosh ball. The person holding the Koosh ball had the floor to speak. Each student was instructed to share one of their best qualities -- something that makes them unique and special. When finished sharing, they would then take the Koosh ball and toss it to another student in the circle. Sharing would continue until everyone had a chance to say something that makes them special or unique. I love that this lesson allows kids to share (which they always want to raise their hand and do anyway) and allows them to hear from their peers.

Monday Encouragement to Teachers

Occasionally the year feels like it is being moved along by elderly turtles. On Mondays that are especially tough (like the week of standardized testing), I like to send out Monday Encouragement emails to the teachers at my three schools. This is the one from this week.

Let It Go: Teacher Style 

(to the tune of “Let it Go” from Frozen)

The sun glows bright out the windows today

not a rainstorm to be seen.

My students are barely quiet,

They’ve forgotten I’m the queen.

Energy is raging like a swirling storm inside,

they can’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried.

“Don’t touch that thing!” --  “Just let it be!”

“Be the good girls and boys I know you used to be!”

Conceal, don’t scream, don’t let them know….

Well, now they know…

Six more weeks, six more weeks --

Until the school year is no more.

Six more weeks, six more weeks --

Turn away and drink some more Coke.

I don’t care what they’re going to say

Let the students rage on…

Their energy never bothered me anyway

Bulletin boards

Part of my job is to create bulletin boards at my three schools. These boards are meant to reflect the characteristic of peace or something to do with our lesson themes. Below are three examples. Sorry for the blurry quality -- I took the pictures with my phone.

Kindness: Being a Bucket-Filler

One of my big topics each year is kindness. Treating each other with kindness is a great way to make friends and solve problems before they start. A lesson that was a real winner was a lesson I did about being Bucket-Fillers.

I read a book to each class to start off the lesson:

• Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud (K-1st)
• How Full Is Your Bucket? (For Kids) by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer (2nd-4th)

Then we did a bucket filling game. I did the game Minute-to-Win-It style. I had a bucket (on which I drew a smiley face), a stopwatch, and about 20 wads of paper made out of colorful copy paper or construction paper. The object of the game was to toss as many paper wads into the bucket as possible in the minute. Then, for each paper wad that made it into the bucket, the class had to give an idea of something kind they could do to fill someone's bucket. They could choose an idea for bucket filling at school, home, or in the community. 

This lesson was such a hit that I had students asking to repeat it for later lessons.