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Friendship & Cooperation
The Alphabet Tree by Leo Lionni
Theme: Together we are more powerful than alone.
- Pre-book Talk
- Read the title and author together.
- Ask children to look at the cover of the book and to tell what they think the book may be about Accept a variety of answers.
- Tell the children that this book s about a spirit of helpfulness and cooperation. Invite children to listen to discover which characters learned how to be helpful and cooperate.
- Read the Book Aloud
- Follow-up Discussion
- Ask children to tell whether or not the story could really have happened, and whether or not they liked the book and why.
- Ask them to retell what happened In their own words.
- Ask them to tell who in the story learned how to be helpful and cooperate.
- Look again at the pages that display the final message, "peace on earth and goodwill toward all men." Talk about what the message means.
- Ask: why did the caterpillar want to take the message about peace and good will to the President?
- Follow-up Activity
- Materials: blocks
- Invite each individual child to take turns picking one block from the box until they have each chosen six blocks.
- Challenge them to each build something with their blocks. After a moment or two, say: "We each don't have many blocks to build with, do we? How can we each get more blocks without going back to our block box?" (Put our blocks together and work with each other.)
- Closure
- Clean-up cooperatively. (Comment aloud when observing children helping each other.)
- Have children assist in passing out snack and turning out lights.
- light chalice; Invite children to allow today's chalice light to remind them of the spirit of cooperation and helpfulness they may offer to friends and family.
- Extra Activity: Offer children connecting letter tiles and invite them to make real words or just hook letters up to make a nonsensical, silly-sounding message.
Frederick by Leo Lionni
Theme: It's important to foster the spirit of the imagination.
- Pre-book Talk
- Read the title and author together.
- Ask children to look at the cover of the book and to tell what they think the book may be about. Accept a variety of answers.
- Tell the children that this book is about the imagination and how important our imaginations are.
- Invite children to listen to discover what Frederick's special job was.
- Read the Book Aloud
- Follow-up Discussion
- Ask children to tell whether or not the story could really have happened, and whether or not they liked the book and why.
- Ask them to retell what happened In their own words.
- Ask them to tell what jobs the mice had to do to get ready for winter and what Frederick's special job was. (to use his imagination to remember the warmth of the sun and the colors, and then to keep his ideas using words to create a poem).
- Ask whether or not they think Frederick's job was as important as the jobs belonging to the other mice.
- Follow-up Activity
- Materials: drawing paper, crayons or markers, guided imagery story Steps:
- Tell the children they are going to use imaginations like Frederick. Tell them that you are going to read a short description of a wonderful place to them, and that they will each imagine the place in their heads. Show they children how Frederick closed his eyes when he was using his imagination.
- Invite children to get comfortable and to close their eyes.
- Slowly and calmly read the guided imagery story (below).
- Invite children to use art supplies to show how their place looked.
- Time permitting, help children add descriptive captions to the pictures.
- Closure
- Share the pictures.
- Ask children to each tell what is happening In their pictures. Comment on how it its interesting that we each heard the same story, but saw it a bit differently in our imaginations. Point out that we each have a unique imagination, an imagination all our own.
- Clean-up, cooperatively. (Comment aloud when observing children helping each other.)
- Have children assist in passing out snack and turning out lights.
- Light chalice; invite children to allow today's chalice light to remind them of the spirit of imagination they each possess.
- Extra Activity: Ask children to take turns using their imaginations to describe a real or imaginary place for the rest to imagine and
draw.
Guided Imagery Story
An Undersea Adventure
AGE: 5 through adult
EXERCISE: 5 minutes
FOLLOW-UP: 15 minutes
Close your eyes and focus your attention on your breath. (Pause).Now imagine that you are walking down to the beach. It is a beautiful, sunny day, and you enjoy the sound of the surf (Pause) As you walk along the beach: you notice a trap door in the sand. You lift up the trap door, and there i a stone stairway leading down under the sand. You walk down the stairway, feeling perfectly safe, and find yourself in a long tunnelway. You WA through the tunnelway until you come to a room at the end of the tunnel. You enter the room, which looks like a glass bubble. You realize that you are in a glass room under the sea. Beautiful colored fish are swimming outside You notice that there is a submarine and a diving suit in the room for your use if you choose to venture out into the sea. There is also a pillowed chair in the middle of the room if you wish to sit down. You now have a minute of clock time equal to all the time you need to enjoy all the wonders of the sea.
(After a minute) Now it is time to return. (Pause) You walk back through the tunnelway, up the stairs toward the sunlight. You close the trap door, knowing that you can return here whenever you wish. You leave the beach and become aware of sitting here, fully present.
I am going to count to ten. join me at the count of six, opening your eyes at ten, feeling fully alert and with full recollection of your adventure. One. . two ... three ... four ... five ... six. . . seven ... eight ... nine ... ten.
Color of His Own by Leo Lionni
Theme: We make friends by discovering similarities.
- Pre-book Talk
- Read the title and author together.
- Ask children to look at the cover of the book and to ten what they think the book may be about. Accept a variety of answers.
- Tell the children that this book is about how we tend to make close friendships with others who are like us.
- Invite children to listen to discover why the chameleon made friends with the other chameleon.
- Read the Book Aloud
- Follow-up Discussion
- Ask children to tell whether or not the story could really have happened, and whether or not they liked the book and why.
- Ask them to retell what happened in their own words.
- Ask them to tell why the chameleon made friends with the other chameleon. (They were the same in many ways.)
- Ask: In what ways are you like your special friends? Are you and your friends exactly alike all the time?
- Follow-up Activity
- Materials: copies of chameleon-shaped papers, water color paint boxes, brushes, black crayons
- Have children brainstorm a master list of qualities and traits they look for in a friend. (honesty, sense of humor, kindness, etc). 2
- Invite each individual child to take a chameleon shape.
- Tell the children that they will use the crayon and this shape to record (or dictate to you) three special words that describe the qualities they look for in a friend, plus three special qualities they offer In friendship. (These may or may not be the same on each child's two chameleons.)
- When children conclude that they can't make a picture alone, ask what would need to happen so they could make a picture. (share the supplies. and share the decision, of what picture to make)
- Invite children to share the supplies. Remind children they still only have one brush. Ask if they can think up ways to participate together with only one brush. (make fingerprint pictures,- look for more brushes,- take short turns with the brush, etc.)
- As they work, ask children to tell how It feels to share.
- Closure
- Clean-up cooperatively. (Comment aloud when observing children helping each other.)
- Have children assist in passing out snack and turning out lights.
- light chalice; invite children to allow today's chalice light to remind them of the Importance of sharing.
- Extra Activity: Ask children to tell why it is sometimes so hard to
share. Talk about whether or not it is necessary to share everything
all the time. Think of examples of things it is not necessary to share.
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