Becoming Problem Solvers in 3rd Grade - "But it's not my fault!" or "What do you do with a problem?"

The kiddos learned about problems inside vs. outside of their control and now it's time for them to start problem solving/taking responsibility for those inside/pipe cleaner problems! Last year I used the book But it's not my fault! with my 3rd graders for this topic, but it was such a hit with the teachers that I included it in their SEL mini-libraries. Good for them...bad for me...because then I had to find a new mentor text (or a lesson plan so amazing and full that it didn't need one).








 I'd seen What do you do with a problem? pop up on some lists and was skeptical about it's fit for my needs but I bit the bullet and ordered it any way. It's not perfect, but I like it enough to use it as an opener.

At this point in the year, almost all of my teachers have already read But it's not my fault! to their classes so we began with a short discussion about that story (summary, Noodle's problem, Noodle's solution). Then we read What to do with a problem? I stop throughout and ask:

• What do you think his problem is?
• Why might he want to run from his problem?
• What does it mean that a problem is an opportunity?

It worked so nicely that my first time with this lesson this year fell after our first (and only?) snowfall of the season...because our planned activity was to do a snowball fight to practice being problem solvers! Each student was given a piece of paper with a problem written on it and were asked to write just one solution to the problem - one thing someone could do to solve it. Then I ask them to stand up, crumple their paper into a snowball, and underhand throw it. I send them to go find a snowball, return to their desks, and provide a unique solution to their new problem. We did 3 rounds of this total so that each problem sheet has three ideas for solving it. It was loads of fun. Unfortunately...it was really, really hard for my students to generate solutions to (what I thought were simple) problems.

I realized I needed to bring it back down a little, at least for this cohort. And when in doubt...sorting/matching cards. I took the most major "problems" in the grade level and made cards for each problem and four possible solutions to each problem. Print/laminate/cut (you know the drill). In small groups, students sorted out the cards to examine which solutions would help solve which problems. This was much more successful!

While each group still had their cards out on the floor and sorted, they completed exit tickets as a way of processing and reflecting. Didn't snag any pics of them completed, but this is what I gave them:

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Perspective Taking With "Hey, Little Ant!" - 2nd Grade Lesson Plan

Our second graders this year are at lots of drastically different levels...both academically and socially. And in their English fluency! It means that 1) we're having to differentiate lessons by classroom way more than usual and 2) we're needing to break concepts down a bit more. This, paired with the fact that conflict is forever and always an issue, lead us to decide to do both a perspective taking lesson and an empathy lesson as part of second grade's social skills theme. The hope is that starting with perspective taking will scaffold (or plant some seeds) before we tackle empathy, especially because we are looking for students to apply the lessons, just not learn the lingo.



We started the perspective taking lesson by showing the students the following three images and asking:

• What do you see?
• Does anyone see anything different?
• What do these pictures all have in common? They don't have right or wrong answers, they include more than one idea, etc.

Then we read the book Hey, Little Ant! by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. We preface it by explaining that it's a dialogue between a kid and an ant and give them the heads up that there is no ending to the story. While we're reading it, we stop a few times to rephrase some of the ideas and do some "think alouds" as our literacy coach calls them (when we verbalize, out loud, a thought we have while reading it). 

The next step is for the students to generate reasons to "save" (or "spare" as one of my high vocab kiddos said today!) the ant and reasons to "squish" the ant. In order to give some talk time and incorporate movement, we have students find 3 different partners and share with each of them a different idea they have. I facilitate the rotating with my chime. Then we sit back together on the rug, they share their ideas, I write them on the easel, and then we repeat with the other side (save or squish, depending on what we started with). Sadly, I forgot my phone for these lessons and didn't get any pics of how it turned out.

I was a little surprised by how enthusiastically they shared their reasoning for squishing the ant...but then they surprised me more by voting (with their eyes closed, no peer pressure involved) to save the ant!

We ended the lesson by a short discussion of how this lesson and story applies to situations at school. We talked through the following examples (using myself and/or actual students as examples):

• One student tells the other student "I think you're doing that math worksheet wrong." They think they're being kind and helpful, but the other student thinks they're being mean and bossy.
• Two students are sitting by each other in the cafeteria. One student accidentally bumps the other and they spill some of their milk. The student who spilled their milk says “I hate you”. The second kid’s perspective is “they bumped me on purpose and didn’t apologize, that was so mean”; the first’s is “it was an accident and I didn’t know they spilled their milk”.

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Confict Resolution Review: Rotations

Last year I devoted an entire lesson in 3rd grade to reviewing the skills taught in previous lessons and I think it was well worth the time. This year I decided to do the same.

Last year I used both a Mario and a Jeopardy game (pre-created PPT templates with my Qs added in). They were a big hit, but it did require whole group attention for 45 minutes straight (that's a challenge for many adults I know!) and I'm not sure how much it helped to cement ideas in their minds.

Because so many of my lessons with 3rd grade this semester have involved sorting and/or task cards, I decided rotations would be the way to go. I tested something similar out last year and while it wasn't perfect, I decided I wanted to give rotations another shot.

I spent the first 10 minutes explaining each of the rotations and very briefly reviewing some of the concepts. My 3rd grade classrooms are all set up in 5 table groups, and so logistically it was a breeze in terms of spacing and grouping; each table group area was a rotation and students traveled together in their table groups. Students then rotated through 5 stations/centers with about 6 minutes at each and 30-60 seconds for transitioning. In hindsight, I should have maybe just done 4 rotations so they could spend longer at each.

Rotation A: The Conflict Escalator
Super straightforward - this was just sorting the same cards we used in this lesson into two categories: words/actions that escalate conflict and words/actions that de-escalate conflict. This wasn't challenging at all for them, but the bimonthly survey I give my teachers indicated that understanding these choices during conflict was still an issue so I included it.

Rotation B: Sizes of Problems
I made an anchor chart about the weather themed sizes of problems we learned about and gave them the same problem cards we used in this lesson to sort through.

Rotation C: Types of Conflict
Another tiny anchor chart and some conflict scenario cards to match up. Most of the scenarios are from the PPT I used to teach this here but I added/swapped a couple as well.

Rotation D: What would you do? Kelso's Choices Edition
A few years ago, my co-counselor got a counselor resources catalog that had this mini (colored!) Kelso's Choices poster. It's perfect for this sort of thing. This center used that poster, the sentence stems "If this conflict happened to me, I would choose _______ because _______", and some conflict examples from this set of cards (I pulled out about 10 of them that seemed to be major issues in the grade this semester). Students took turns pulling and reading cards, then identifying how they would solve the problem and why.

Rotation E: Talk it Out
I pulled another 10 of the most applicable conflict example cards and put them with the Talk it Out sentence stems in sheet protectors and skinny dry erase markers. Whereas the other centers are group based, this one is individual work. Students practiced writing Talk it Out statements given conflict examples, similar to in this lesson.

And that's it! Teachers take time to review core concepts they've already taught and practiced, why shouldn't we?! Next semester, the 3rd grade theme shifts into problem solving other types of problems (being responsible, coping skills, etc.) and this was a simple and fun way to wrap up conflict resolution.

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Staying True to You Lesson Plan

Last spring, my 4th graders became overly focused on being cool and some of my 3rd graders started doing really...well..stupid things...because others told them to. I wanted to do a lesson on peer pressure but needed something that was elementary appropriate and had nothing to do with substances. Something about staying true to yourself. And something that wasn't about accepting yourself for being different.

I found an unlikely winner in the book Sorry! by, of course, Trudy Ludwig. As I mentioned here, the book certainly does discuss genuine vs. disingenuous apologies, but the real focus is on staying true to who you are. The book is rich with discussion topics.

One activity I use after reading this book is Quiz, Quiz, Trade with discussion questions about the book and theme. I did this with my 3rd graders because it was a better fit with their abilities than the silent talk activity below.

                                          

The other activity I use is what I call "silent talk" but others have called "chalk talk". I explain to the students that they are going to discuss the story...silently. Most are able to guess we'll be writing. I put 5-6 discussion questions on sticky chart paper and post them around the room. The idea is that after answering each question, they will continue to walk around the room and read each other's responses and add comments, ask questions, use symbols, etc. I project some ideas of ways that they can interact with one anothers' responses. I usually have to model this and remind them as we go, because they all get hyper focused with just answering all of the questions.

With about 10ish minutes left, I stop them, gather the question sheets, and we circle up on the floor. I go through each question and share what I notice about their responses and they share what they've noticed.

*In the past, I did this lesson after this sort of thing had already become an issue. This year, something similar started to pop up earlier than usual in one of the homerooms so I went ahead and moved this up in the curriculum map. It made the lesson more reinforcing (of their still strong beliefs in staying true to themselves and being kind) and preventative than in the past. I haven't decided yet if I think this is the right timing or if I should have waited. Time will tell!*

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Identifying and Ignoring Distractions Lesson Plan

Have you ever asked the teachers to tell you what they want a lesson on, and they tell you, and then you regret asking a little because you have no idea how to accomplish what they want? No? Maybe it's just me...

This year's most requested academic topic lesson is "Identifying and Ignoring Distractions". Yowza. That's a biggie. When I first was tasked with this last year, I did an exhaustive google search. While I got some great ideas for the identification side of things, I struggled to connect with finding a solid way to teach kiddos how to ignore them.

I start off the lesson with this Sesame Street short called "Focus":

I ask the students after: What was the problem the girl has? Did anyone catch any of the ways she used to solve her problem and be more focused?



And then, like the greats that came before me (Ms. Sepp and Jill Kuzma), I used Ned's Head. Students took turns pulling different kinds of distractions at school out of his head. Students used pre-learned "agree" or "disagree" hand signals to show if it's a distraction they struggle with sometimes. The grossness factor usually worked in my favor. After we've gone through them all, I ask the students to tell my why distractions are a problem and then share out (grades suffer, you get in trouble, etc.).







Then I ask them to brainstorm (either at their table group, whole group, or turn and talk) some ways to handle these distractions so we can stay focused. I project this list and we discuss any of the ones on it that they didn't mention:

I always take a minute to explain what self-talk is for the half of the class that doesn't know: "Self-talk is the stuff we tell ourselves in our minds. It's all the thoughts we have in our mind. Using self-talk can be really helpful when we are distracted to help us focus again."

They should all have experience with the other strategies by now (ignoring, taking a deep breath, moving somewhere else) so the brief reminder that they work both for conflict and for distractions is all I do. My big hope is for the students to grasp self-talk and begin using that as well, so that's the focus for our applied practice.

I used a few different strategies depending on each class' individual needs and abilities, but they all involved scripts/scenarios: situations where a student would be distracted paired with self-talk the student could use to focus. Here's a link to the scripts (both formats) in my TPT store.

Option A: I acted out about 3 of these using the teacher and some of the higher readers in the class.

Option B: I put students in small groups, gave them scripts and about 10 minutes to "prepare", and then they performed each of them for the whole group.

Option C: Each scenario was a different rotation with 4 copies of the script. Groups rotated through and at each one they chorally read the scenario and then each read the self-talk portion of the script aloud individually.

In one room I had the ability to conduct this lesson as a two-parter and had a little extra time. I had students write examples of the self-talk they can use in situations where they may get distracted. For 3rd grade ELL students, I was very impressed!

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