Our “Something Beautiful”
Teacher: Ms. Erin
Grade Level: Kindergarten
Subject Area: Social Studies – Beauty – and Literacy
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Materials:
· The only preparation needed is to have the chart paper hung up next to the teacher’s chair on the carpet and to have a marker available to write with.
MMSD Elementary Social Studies Standards Connections for Kindergarten:
· SWBAT explain that beauty is not just something that describes the way people or things look, it can also describe people’s actions and decisions.
· SWBAT describe why the young girl in the book Something Beautiful is described as “something beautiful” .
· SWBAT identify ways in which we as a class can also be “something beautiful” in our own community.
Lesson Context:
· So far in this unit on beauty, we have covered topics of beauty that all have to do with physical characteristics of people or objects. However, beauty is more than just a physical attribute. Beauty also deals with people’s actions, decisions, mannerisms, etc. Therefore, I want to make sure that we have at least one lesson that focuses on these aspects of beauty. I want students to begin to realize that beauty is more than what is on the outside.
· Also, when I interviewed my students about “What makes a person beautiful?,” a couple of my students explained that helping people makes someone beautiful. Because some of my students have this background understanding of beauty being more than just a physical attribute, I want to validate their thinking and expand on this idea.
Lesson Procedure: (approximately 45 minutes)
· When everyone has gathered on the carpet, I will ask the students if they remember when I asked each of them the question, “What makes a person beautiful?” Hopefully most of the students will raise their hands. I will tell them that I heard all different types of responses, all of them being great answers. I will ask the students if anyone would volunteer to tell the rest of the class how they answered this question. Hopefully, one of the students who said that a beautiful person is somebody who helps someone will volunteer to tell the class his/her answer. If this answer is not provided by the students, I will tell the students myself. I will explain that a couple students told me that beautiful people help other people. I will ask the students if they all agree with this statement.
· After everyone agrees that a person is beautiful when they are nice to other people and may help other people, I will explain to them that so far we have talked a lot about the word beauty, but we have only talked about the way beauty looks to our eyes. We haven’t talked about beautiful things such as helping other people.
· I will ask the students if they know of any ideas of beautiful things that people do. I will give them an example; such as, “I think it is beautiful when my friends share their things with me.” I will tell them that this is an “action”. An action is when someone does something. I will ask for any other ideas of beautiful actions.
· I will then tell the students that I am going to read them a story about beautiful actions. This story is called Something Beautiful. In this story, the young girl is sad because she doesn’t think that her neighborhood is very beautiful because there is broken glass everywhere and graffiti on the doors and no flowers in the garden. She goes on a journey to find something beautiful about her neighborhood. I will tell the students that I want them to tell me after I finish reading the story what the “something beautiful” is that the young girl finds at the end of the story.
· I will read Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth.
· After reading the story, I will ask the students if they found out what the “something beautiful” is that the girl ended up finding in her neighborhood. They might say things such as “the woman sleeping in the cardboard carton, or her baby cousin. I will tell them that this is true, these are all beautiful parts of her neighborhood, but that was not the one “something beautiful” that she found at the end. If the students cannot think of the answer, I will read the part of the story again in which her mom tells the young girl that she is the “something beautiful.” I will ask the class why the young girl ended up being the “something beautiful” that she was looking for the whole time.
· Through our discussion, we will arrive at the decision that the young girl was the “something beautiful” because of the actions she took, the things that she did, in her neighborhood to make it cleaner and better for everyone. She cleaned up the broken glass, she scrubbed the graffiti off of her door, and she decided that she wanted to find a bed for the woman and plant flowers in the garden.
· I will then ask the students if this story gives us any ideas of more beautiful actions that people do. After the students provide some more answers, I will ask them if there is something beautiful that we can do in our neighborhood/community to make it better for everyone.
· As students are sharing ideas of beautiful actions that we can do for our community, I will write these ideas on the chart paper. I will encourage the students to explain why these ideas are beautiful actions. How can they help other people/things?
Lesson Closure: (approximately 5 minutes)
· After generating our list of ideas of beautiful things that we can do for our neighborhood/community, I will explain to the students that these are just a few ways that we can be that “something beautiful” like the young girl is in the story by doing any of these things that we just listed.
Extension Activities:
· This lesson would work perfectly to begin a social justice unit on giving back to the community and standing up for what we believe is right. The students could choose one of these “beautiful actions” that they came up with, and the class could delve into a unit on this topic in more details.
Assessment Strategies:
· I will informally assess the students by observing the ideas that they come up with in regard to what beautiful actions we could take to make our community a better place for ourselves and others. I will be hoping to see that the students understood the point of the story in that the young girl was “something beautiful” because she chose to clean up her neighborhood. The answers that the students provide should reflect this same type of thinking.
Differentiation:
· The list of ideas that we will create allows for differentiation because the students can provide any ideas that they have. Although I will encourage the students to expand on ideas in order to ensure that these ideas really are “beautiful actions”, the students really do have the freedom to think of anything they want that is important to them.
Cultural Relevance:
· This lesson of generating ideas of beautiful things that we could do in our community to make it a better place is extremely relevant to the students’ lives. These are issues that affect them all the time. Also, the issues that the young girl dealt with in the book are also issues that the some of the students in my classroom deal with every day.
Grade Level: Kindergarten
Subject Area: Social Studies – Beauty – and Literacy
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Materials:
- Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth (1998)
- Chart paperand marker
· The only preparation needed is to have the chart paper hung up next to the teacher’s chair on the carpet and to have a marker available to write with.
MMSD Elementary Social Studies Standards Connections for Kindergarten:
- Behavioral:
- Describe different ways of expressing emotions and feelings.
- Demonstrate responsibility for their role within the school environment (i.e., school rules, respect the rights of self and others, appropriate behaviors).
- People, Places, and Environment
- We will be discussing the environment in which the young girl from the story Something Beautiful lives in and we will use this to talk about our own environment in which we live.
- Power, Authority, and Governance
- The young girl in the story is considered “something beautiful” because of the actions she takes to make her own environment beautiful and make life better for the people around her.
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Standard 6: Connects School and Community
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During this lesson, the students will be exploring ways that they can work to make their school or community more beautiful for everyone.
-
During this lesson, the students will be exploring ways that they can work to make their school or community more beautiful for everyone.
· SWBAT explain that beauty is not just something that describes the way people or things look, it can also describe people’s actions and decisions.
· SWBAT describe why the young girl in the book Something Beautiful is described as “something beautiful” .
· SWBAT identify ways in which we as a class can also be “something beautiful” in our own community.
Lesson Context:
· So far in this unit on beauty, we have covered topics of beauty that all have to do with physical characteristics of people or objects. However, beauty is more than just a physical attribute. Beauty also deals with people’s actions, decisions, mannerisms, etc. Therefore, I want to make sure that we have at least one lesson that focuses on these aspects of beauty. I want students to begin to realize that beauty is more than what is on the outside.
· Also, when I interviewed my students about “What makes a person beautiful?,” a couple of my students explained that helping people makes someone beautiful. Because some of my students have this background understanding of beauty being more than just a physical attribute, I want to validate their thinking and expand on this idea.
Lesson Procedure: (approximately 45 minutes)
· When everyone has gathered on the carpet, I will ask the students if they remember when I asked each of them the question, “What makes a person beautiful?” Hopefully most of the students will raise their hands. I will tell them that I heard all different types of responses, all of them being great answers. I will ask the students if anyone would volunteer to tell the rest of the class how they answered this question. Hopefully, one of the students who said that a beautiful person is somebody who helps someone will volunteer to tell the class his/her answer. If this answer is not provided by the students, I will tell the students myself. I will explain that a couple students told me that beautiful people help other people. I will ask the students if they all agree with this statement.
· After everyone agrees that a person is beautiful when they are nice to other people and may help other people, I will explain to them that so far we have talked a lot about the word beauty, but we have only talked about the way beauty looks to our eyes. We haven’t talked about beautiful things such as helping other people.
· I will ask the students if they know of any ideas of beautiful things that people do. I will give them an example; such as, “I think it is beautiful when my friends share their things with me.” I will tell them that this is an “action”. An action is when someone does something. I will ask for any other ideas of beautiful actions.
· I will then tell the students that I am going to read them a story about beautiful actions. This story is called Something Beautiful. In this story, the young girl is sad because she doesn’t think that her neighborhood is very beautiful because there is broken glass everywhere and graffiti on the doors and no flowers in the garden. She goes on a journey to find something beautiful about her neighborhood. I will tell the students that I want them to tell me after I finish reading the story what the “something beautiful” is that the young girl finds at the end of the story.
· I will read Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth.
· After reading the story, I will ask the students if they found out what the “something beautiful” is that the girl ended up finding in her neighborhood. They might say things such as “the woman sleeping in the cardboard carton, or her baby cousin. I will tell them that this is true, these are all beautiful parts of her neighborhood, but that was not the one “something beautiful” that she found at the end. If the students cannot think of the answer, I will read the part of the story again in which her mom tells the young girl that she is the “something beautiful.” I will ask the class why the young girl ended up being the “something beautiful” that she was looking for the whole time.
· Through our discussion, we will arrive at the decision that the young girl was the “something beautiful” because of the actions she took, the things that she did, in her neighborhood to make it cleaner and better for everyone. She cleaned up the broken glass, she scrubbed the graffiti off of her door, and she decided that she wanted to find a bed for the woman and plant flowers in the garden.
· I will then ask the students if this story gives us any ideas of more beautiful actions that people do. After the students provide some more answers, I will ask them if there is something beautiful that we can do in our neighborhood/community to make it better for everyone.
· As students are sharing ideas of beautiful actions that we can do for our community, I will write these ideas on the chart paper. I will encourage the students to explain why these ideas are beautiful actions. How can they help other people/things?
Lesson Closure: (approximately 5 minutes)
· After generating our list of ideas of beautiful things that we can do for our neighborhood/community, I will explain to the students that these are just a few ways that we can be that “something beautiful” like the young girl is in the story by doing any of these things that we just listed.
Extension Activities:
· This lesson would work perfectly to begin a social justice unit on giving back to the community and standing up for what we believe is right. The students could choose one of these “beautiful actions” that they came up with, and the class could delve into a unit on this topic in more details.
Assessment Strategies:
· I will informally assess the students by observing the ideas that they come up with in regard to what beautiful actions we could take to make our community a better place for ourselves and others. I will be hoping to see that the students understood the point of the story in that the young girl was “something beautiful” because she chose to clean up her neighborhood. The answers that the students provide should reflect this same type of thinking.
Differentiation:
· The list of ideas that we will create allows for differentiation because the students can provide any ideas that they have. Although I will encourage the students to expand on ideas in order to ensure that these ideas really are “beautiful actions”, the students really do have the freedom to think of anything they want that is important to them.
Cultural Relevance:
· This lesson of generating ideas of beautiful things that we could do in our community to make it a better place is extremely relevant to the students’ lives. These are issues that affect them all the time. Also, the issues that the young girl dealt with in the book are also issues that the some of the students in my classroom deal with every day.
