This year I decided to rework our fourth grade bullying prevention unit so that it builds upon the visually rich and thought-provoking book Goodbye Bully Machine by Debbie Fox. We’re in the midst of it now, and it’s going really well. I’ll share all the lessons and resources once we’ve completed the unit, but am so excited that I wanted to share this piece of it right away! Today our fourth graders put on a play based on the book, and you can see it in this video. (It runs a little more than 6 minutes.)
[youtube=http://youtu.be/TTpeCzfnsFc]
Here’s how the Goodbye Bully Machine play came to be: We have a wonderfully talented and collaborative new fourth grade teacher, Lanni, who has a background in theater. I told her I would be reading Goodbye Bully Machine in her class and asked if she would consider helping with a machine-based theater game that we would do together in her class, and which I would then recreate with the other fourth grades. Because the book’s language and illustrations are so rich and complex, I had planned to spread it out over two lessons. At the end of the first lesson, Lanni could barely contain herself – she was so inspired and filled with ideas. We went to the other fourth grade teachers, who signed on right away, and scheduled rehearsals. (We used 3 of my 45-minute classroom counseling times and three other times from regular classroom time.) Within a few days Lanni had created the soundtrack – she chose selections from the book, narrated it, and created the background machine sounds with GarageBand.
The kids had loved the book and were working on a related activity in art class (more about that soon), so they were very excited about the prospect of turning it into a play. They worked hard – their focus was amazing – and I think you’ll agree that they did a remarkable job. The whole school was buzzing about it all day and the “bully machine” was the topic of discussion among kids K-5 (and in the teachers’ room) in organized and casual conversations. The counselors from the other elementary schools were in the audience because we had a meeting scheduled right after the assembly, and they immediately invited our fourth grade to visit their schools to perform.
The kids were so proud of themselves and I am still just about bursting with pride! Our bullying prevention unit is built around the essential question “How can we work together to prevent and stop bullying?” Our fourth graders did just that today.
You might also be interested in:
Trackbacks/Pingbacks