Tag Archives: Harmony Day

What the world needs now — friendship skills – #readilearn

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Here in Australia, today 18 March is the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence.  Next Monday 21 March sees another three events, all celebrating friendship: Harmony Day , the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and World Down Syndrome Day.

While none of these events have ‘friendship’ in their title, that to me is what it all comes down to: acceptance, kindness and friendship. It is sad to see how difficult it can be to attain on a personal, local, national and international level. We must all do what we can to make the world a happier place through inclusion and respect.

Here at readilearn, friendship skills have always been a focus. We have over twenty resources to support the teaching of friendship skills. They can all be found under the heading ‘Friendship Skills’ in the resources for Character Development.

These are just a few of the readilearn friendship skills lessons and resources:

Busy Bees ABC of friendship is an alphabet of words that can be used to stimulate discussion about what a friend is and what friends do.Each letter has a word and accompanying explanatory statement on its own chart. The entire alphabet is also available on one printable chart. It could be used for a bingo-type card on which children colour the box for each letter as they do something appropriate to the word.

Be friends not bullies provides suggestions for teaching children friendship skills. It teaches them to identify the differences between friendly and unfriendly behaviour, to recognise bullying and to provide strategies for dealing with bullying that they may encounter personally or as an onlooker.

The resource includes:

  • a story stimulus with suggestions for presentation and discussion
  • follow up activities
  • games to play
  • a poster to print

Topics for discussion include:

Continue reading: What the world needs now — friendship skills – Readilearn

special days and events to celebrate in the classroom in March

Special Days and Events for Classroom Celebrations — March – #readilearn

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As we step into March, here in the Southern Hemisphere, we are looking forward to some cooler weather and a reprieve from summer’s heat as autumn begins. In the Northern Hemisphere, many will be looking forward to springtime and warmer days.

Things to do in March

Regardless of your location, March is a good time for discussing the seasons and observing changes in the environment.

Records might include observations of changes in:

  • plants (remember this is the International Year of Plant Health so add that to your discussions)
  • animals
  • the weather including temperature
  • their own activities
  • the clothing they wear
  • the foods they eat

Records could be made using photographs, artworks (including drawing, painting, collage) and words.

The Classroom Daily Calendar can assist you record the weather and season for each day.

Clean up Australia Day

The first of March is Clean up Australia Day. The website provides useful information to assist each of us to be proactive in eliminating waste and reducing pollution. Each section in helping us to ‘Clean Up Our Waste’ explains the problem and suggests actions we can take. Whether large or small, every action makes a difference. Why not encourage your students to employ positive actions for the environment.

The website also lists ways individuals, schools and communities can become involved in cleaning up Australia on Sunday 1 March. (Clean Up Schools Day is today, 28 February.)

Continue reading: Special Days and Events for Classroom Celebrations — March – readilearn

Making friends – Readilearn

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What many children look most forward to about school is playtime with their friends.

Learning how to be a friend, and how to make friends, is an essential ingredient in an early childhood classroom. Children’s socio-emotional development is perhaps more important than any other as their future happiness and success will depend upon it. Happy kids learn more easily than unhappy kids.

The importance of developing a warm, welcoming, supportive, inclusive classroom environment cannot be overstated. Many readilearn classroom management resources assist teachers with this, and I have previously suggested ways of helping children get to know each other, including using class surveys and the Me and my friends worksheets to discover their similarities and differences.

In this post, I suggest strategies that can be used to help children develop friendship skills.

Continue reading: Making friends – Readilearn