Book 1: Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch

Standards:

K-4.1 Identify qualities of good citizenship, including honesty, courage, determination, individual responsibility, and patriotism.

K-4.2 Demonstrate good citizenship in classroom behaviors, including taking personal responsibility, cooperating and respecting others, taking turns and sharing, and working with others to solve problems.

Summary:

Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch is a story about a man named Mr. Hatch that lives a lonely, routine life. One Valentines Day he gets a package at his door with a heart box of candy and a note that says: “somebody loves you.” Mr. Hatch is so thrilled that someone has thought of him that he goes out into the community and starts to help others. He watches the newsstand man’s stand for him so he could go to the doctor, he found the grocer’s little girl for him, and he baked brownies for the children in the neighborhood. Then one day the postman comes to Mr. Hatch’s door and tells him that the package was not for him and he is so sad and he goes back to his lonely, routine life. Then one day there is a knock at his door. It is the entire neighborhood with heart boxes of candy and a big banner that says: “everybody loves Mr. Hatch.”

Objectives:

The students will recognize what it means to be a good citizen in a community by placing the name of a fellow student into the “good citizen jar” and explaining what it was that he or she did that made them a good citizen.

Materials:

Book Somebody Loves you, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spineli

Glass jar

Slips of paper

Pencils

Smartboard

Procedure:

1. The teacher will read the book Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch to the class.
2. During the book read, the teacher will point out all of the things that Mr. Hatch does that are considered to be qualities of a good citizen such as helping others and being responsible and trustworthy.
3. The teacher will talk to the students about what being a good citizen means and will write the words that the students use to describe a good citizen on the smartboard.
4. The teacher will talk to the students more about how the qualities discussed make a good citizen and why it is important to be a good citizen to help others in any way that you can.
5. The teacher will show the glass jar to the students and explain to them that it is going to be a new part of their writing center.
6. The teacher will tell the students that the jar is going to be called the “good citizen jar” and that it is for them to nominate each other for something that they might have done that considers for them to be a good citizen of the classroom.
7. The teacher will explain to the students that they are to write the student’s name on the slip of paper that they are nominating and then must write a few words about what he or she did to become nominated.
8. The teacher will explain to the students that they are to nominate other students when they have seen them do something that represents what a good citizen should do and that they are not to nominate themselves.
9. The jar will be at the writing center and at the end of the month; the teacher will draw a name from the jar for a student to win a good citizen prize.