No Name Calling Week

Last week was officially "No Name Calling Week," or as my students like to call it, "No Bullying Week." What better week to begin my bullying unit?!  I thought I would share some of my ideas with you. I got a lot of my resources from http://www.nonamecallingweek.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home.html. They provide a teacher guide, parent letters, school-wide activities, and more.

Classroom Guidance Lesson for 3rd grade
Today, we read Simon's Hook: A Story About Teases and Put Downs by Karen Burnett and talked about what to do when someone is teasing you or calling you names.

I picked this book specifically for No Name Calling week, but also because I know of some current friendship concerns in 3rd grade.  My hope is to give the students who are being picked on some confidence and some tricks to "pull out of their bag" when their classmates are being mean to them. Also, as a way to encourage more positive behavior, I had each student pull another student's name out of a cup and had them write a "put-up" message to that person. We talked about what a put-up is and brainstormed ideas of nice things to say to each other. I made sure to tell them to tailor their put-up message specifically to the person's name they drew so we didn't get lots of general put-ups like, "you're nice" and "you're a great friend."  I created this document and printed it off on label paper so that I could stick the put-ups up on a bulletin board.  Then, as the students walk by the board they can search it for the put-up written to them and hopefully it will brighten their day :) not to mention provide a visual of hundred of examples of put-ups.

Next week, I plan on showing these 3 videos to review Simon's Hook and remind students how to "not get caught by the bully's bait!"

Check back tomorrow for No Name Calling Week ideas to use with 5th grade and 4th grade! :)