Teach young children that with a little perseverance and the help of a good friend, anything is possible. This two-part lesson series based on the book Giraffe's Can't Dance starts with a shared reading about Gerald and his attempts to learn how to dance, before students watch a short video about bullying and act out skits demonstrating how to respond to different situations.

Concepts

reader's theater, bullying, children's literature, friendship

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Additional Tags

english language arts

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Instructional Ideas

• Perform this lesson series near the beginning of the year to establish a safe classroom environment
• As a language arts learning center, allow children to work in pairs reading through and acting out the story using the included puppets
• When discussing the bullying video, be sure make connections with events from the story
• Create laminated copies of the puppets for use year after year

Classroom Considerations

• Lesson requires a copy of the book Giraffes Can't Dance which may be found in your school or local public library
• With older students, you can skip a reading of the story and teach the bullying lesson on its own

Pros

• An extensive list of questions are provided for guiding class discussions about the book and the concept of bullying
• Prompts are provided that support children with writing about bullying
• Hands-on activities are provided that engage children in reading the story and learning about bullying

Cons

• None

Common Core

RL.1.2 RL.1.7 W.1.2 SL.K.1.a SL.K.2 SL.1.1.a SL.1.2 SL.2.1.a SL.2.2 SL.3.1.a SL.3.2 SL.4.1.a SL.4.2 SL.5.1.a SL.5.2 SL.6.1.a SL.6.2