Third Grade Health
Lesson Plan with
“Totally Awesome Teaching Strategies”
Items from (Meeks, L, Heit, P, and Page, R. 2011:405-407), except for *
Fun, Catchy Title: We Are Together, Gloomy or Glad!
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Content Area (one of the titles/topics of Chapters 5-14):
Mental and Emotional Health
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Grade Level: 3
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Health Goal (found in chapters 5-14 and Scope and Sequence. Chart):
I will Interact in Ways that Help Create a Positive Social-Emotional Environment
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National Health Education Standard (from chapter 3)OR
California Health Education Standards (at websites) or both:
This lesson plan supports these Health Education Standards:
HES #2: Students will analyze the influence of family, peers, culture, media, technology, and other factors on health behaviors, and HES #4: Students will demonstrate the ability to use interpersonal communication skills to enhance health and avoid or reduce health risks, and HES #8: Students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health. | |
Performance Indicators (see Scope and Sequence Chart and Chapter 3):
Students will be able to:
-Explain what it means to be a family/community -List ways to be a responsible family/community member -Discuss ways to help friends to be healthy and positive | |
Assessment/Evaluation:
Mastery- how will you know they know it?
Following the lesson, students can present one thing from their Self Portrait worksheet that illustrates the concepts presented in class discussion.
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Performance indicators:
-recognize, analyze, evaluate, and interpret the influence that their interactions affect the social environment of the classroom and beyond.
-interact in positive ways with family members and people in the school and community. -resolve conflict in healthful ways. -recognize when and how they might serve as advocates for positive interactions in their classroom and communities.
Life skills:
Emotional mastery, conflict resolution, society group bonding, positive thinking, leadership |
Infusion/Subject Integration:
Area of curriculum:
How will you address 4C’s
Collaboration
Communication
Critical Thinking
Creativity
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Rationale
Students participate in discussion by holding up the respective GLOOMY or GLAD cards. They collaborate as a class to devise solutions for communicating positivity to imagined student situations. Critical thinking in this lesson includes empathy building, logic, and conflict resolution. Creative problem solving is required in order to devise new and useful ways of promoting positivity in the classroom.
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Health Literacy:
Critical thinking
Problem solving
Responsible citizenship
Self-directed learning
Effective communication
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Action and rationale
The main driving force behind this lesson shows the classroom as a miniature society, in which every student must contribute. Their contributions will either be positive or negative depending on their choices in a situation. This does not make them “good” or “bad,” but what it does show is the duty of each student as citizen of the classroom to make some sort of contribution to the community, and it shows them that they absolutely make a difference in the classroom. These types of thinking build self-esteem, and increase feelings of camaraderie among students, as well as empowers students to keep a lasting interest in being positive in the classroom.
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Materials:
GLOOMY CARDS
GLAD CARDS STUDENT EXAMPLE ILLUSTRATIONS SELF PORTRAIT WORKSHEET |
Action and rationale
GLOOMY CARDS: Symbolize a mood, emotion, or state of mind that is negative. Can be a laminated card of a piece of construction paper that has a gloomy, grey or black color. Must have enough so that each student can have one card. GLAD CARDS: Symbolize a mood, emotion, or state of mind that is positive. Can be laminated construction paper that is a bright, happy color. Must have enough so that each student can have one.
STUDENT EXAMPLE ILLUSTRATIONS: Include illustrations of students who are coming into the class from different circumstances:
-One student who came to school in a bad mood -One student who came to school in a great mood -One student who came to school sad about a family member’s illness -One student who came to school anxious about a spelling test -One student who came to school excited to see their friends -One student who is nervous about being teased because he looks different -One student who is scared to be teased for having a wheelchair -One worksheet where the student draws a self-portrait and explains one or two positive or negative things that student communicates regularly to himself/herself, with the prompt of “What positive things will I tell myself more?” |
Motivation:
1. Background knowledge:
Moods can be positive or negative. Moods can also be contagious. Students can have a direct impact on the level of positivity within the classroom. Ask the students what some positive feelings are, and what some negative feelings are.
Teaching - Step by step instructions2. Pass out the GLOOMY and GLAD cards to the class. Each student should have one. Explain that the GLOOMY cards represent those negative emotions, and the GLAD cards represent those positive emotions. Ask the students: “How are you doing today? Did you start your day with us GLOOMY or GLAD? Hold up the card that represents how you felt when you came to class today.”
3. Now ask the students a series of questions about how they feel about their teacher: “How do your cards change if you come into class and your teacher is cranky right away?” How do your cards change if you come into class and your teacher says things like: ‘I am so so very glad to see you all today!’” “What about if your teacher says: ‘Children are wonderful!’” “What about if your teacher says: ‘Children are horrible!’”
4. The teacher points out how what he/she says and does can inspire a change in cards, and that sometimes these changes can inspire positive moods, and sometimes they can inspire negative moods. The teacher asks what kinds of things students can say to inspire positive emotions, and what kinds of things students can say that inspire negative emotions. The teacher leads discussion by asking which type of environment feels better. Which helps us get more work done? Which helps us learn more? Which helps us be better and happier people?
5. The teacher states that we all have to help each other have a positive experience in the classroom. Students can do this by using positive statements toward classmates, and everyone they interact with. The teacher then begins to use the illustrations for each student, describing their situations one at a time. The teacher leads class discussion and ideas about positive and negative things to say, with the goal of finding the most positive and encouraging statements for each situation.
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Action and rationale
1. Students can list some emotions that are positive, and emotions that are negative. They should notice that positive emotions generally feel better than negative ones. Notice that emotions are NOT presented as being inherently good or bad; only as positive or negative.
2. Students can observe that the moods they have at home can carry over to the classroom. Even before the day begins, each student has had different experiences that morning, and can feel completely different about them.
3. Students can notice how their mood cards change depending on the mood and comments they receive from their teacher. One important thing they will notice is that it is very likely that their cards will all change together, which underlines the fact that the classroom experience is one that all students share. The other thing this introduces is that in a community, or any space that is shared, one person’s mood or approach can have an effect on the positive/negative tone of others, which contributes to the overall “color” shown by the classroom.
4. Students learn that everyone contributes to the classroom environment, not just the teacher. Students can also discover that they directly influence the positivity or negativity within the classroom—that they have a lot more power than they realize, and that they have the important job of contributing positivity to the classroom setting. They start to realize that they can contribute to the positive and negative experiences of other students. 5. Students learn that positive and negative emotions do not respectively mean something that is good or bad. For example, a student who is sad about a sick relative is using his emotions well; it is appropriate to feel sad in that situation. However, classmates can still help that student by providing a safe and encouraging environment for him to talk about his feelings, and by offering friendship and validation. In that way, a student may not stop being sad, but he can have the opportunity to feel GLAD about the environment he is in, and can feel free to learn even in spite of difficult circumstances. |
Multicultural Infusion:
Adaptation for cultural diversity
6. The teacher can then talk about a situation where a student comes from a different country. Perhaps this student speaks a different language at home. Perhaps this student has family who lives very far away, and feels lonely sometimes. Perhaps this student is nervous about fitting in.
Differentiation for ELL7. The teacher shows an illustration of a regular-looking student. However, the teacher explains that this student comes from a different country, and is still learning English. What kinds of things can students say and do to communicate positivity to this English-learning student?
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Action and rationale
6. By addressing cultural diversity within the classroom, students are guided to first empathize with others regarding their differences, and then to devise ways to communicate inclusion, and to invite students to be a part of the classroom community. This naturally provides opportunities to appreciate cultural differences, and to talk about them in a way that prevents students from feeling singled-out, while giving students tools to use to talk about how they feel.
7. This type of critical thinking involves not just words, but actions. Offering things like help with homework is a great way to promote encouragement. Also, simply saying hello or offering a high-five is a great way to help an English learner feel included. The teacher should include the fact that sometimes we don’t have to say anything. A smile can change a card from GLOOMY to GLAD. So can an invitation to play. Or simply sitting next to the student during lunch period so that student isn’t sitting alone. |
Inclusion -Differentiation for special learning challenges
Gifted
8. Teachers can include gifted students in the same conversation as the rest of the class by leading discussion of these concepts.
Learning Challenged9. The teacher can then talk about students who face challenges with learning new things. Sometimes their brains work differently than others’. The teacher should ask whether or not the students think those children experience GLOOMY or GLAD emotions. Do they ever feel positivity? Do they have a sense of negative emotions? What kinds of emotions do students think these children might have when they begin their day? What should students do if they see someone being mean or negative toward a student with an intellectual disability?
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Action and rationale
8. With the teacher staying in the “driver’s seat” of the lesson, students are given equal exposure to the concepts of contributing to a classroom environment. Students are not singled-out for somehow already knowing the material. They are also prevented from being exploited as secondary teachers/teacher’s aids. A teacher should also talk about these concepts being important at all ages and all levels as things students can do for their whole lives.
9. This teaches the lesson that creating a positive environment is possible for children to help with, even with other children who have intellectual disabilities. The teacher should explain that not only is this possible, but it is also something that all students must do in order to have a healthy and positive environment.
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Technology:AVK ( audio, visual, kinesthetic):
1. Cards
2. Illustrations
Use of technologyNo tech is required
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Action and rationale
1. Cards create a visual of how the colors of moods change in the classroom in real-time, in response to the presented stimuli.
2. Illustrations help students imagine the way emotions come into play in different situations, and can practice on illustrated people before practicing on real ones.
I also think this would be a great time to start reading or watching Matilda, by Roald Dahl. The class can discuss how Matilda feels when she talks to her kind teacher, Miss Honey, versus how she feels when she encounters the horrible Ms. Trunchbull. Also, Matilda uses her anger from the neglect she receives by her parents as something that fuels her superpowers—though she later learns how to use her powers without being angry.
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Metacognition - *Conclusion/Debrief/
Reflection with students
Teacher leads review of what students have learned in the lesson. Students should now be able to answer questions like:
What can emotions be? Who has emotions? Do our emotions matter? What changes our emotions? Where do these changes happen while we are at school? Do other classes have emotions? How do we protect the positivity of our classroom environment? How do we continue this lesson in our lives and in our classroom for the remainder of the school year? |
Action and rationale
Emotions can be positive or negative. Everyone goes through changes of emotions, and this can happen at all points of all of our lives. In the classroom, we are each responsible for doing our best to inspire positivity for ourselves and for others. We can be advocates for making sure other students in our classroom, our school, and our community are treated with positivity and respect.
Teachers can assign the GLOOMY/GLAD Self Portrait worksheet as homework, and can continue the conversation about positive and negative emotions the following day when the worksheets are presented. GLOOMY/GLAD cards can be used as a morning icebreaker for the teacher to connect with students first thing, and to engage them into the class session for the day. Teachers can also keep the cards in mind if there are bigger issues to address, such as things students might see in the news, upcoming holiday breaks, changes to school rules, policies, or staff, or anything else that will change the students’ world within the classroom setting. |
References:
Castro, V. L, Halberstadt, A. G., & Garret-Peters, P. (2016). A Three-factor Structure of Emotion Understanding in Third-grade Children. Social Development, (25)3, 602-622. Doi.10.1111/sode.12162
Kamanetz, A. Who are the gifted and talented and what do they need. (2015). NPREd. Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/28/443193523/who-are-the-gifted-and-talented-and-what-do-they-need
Meeks, L. (2013). Comprehensive School Health Education. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
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