Book 3: It's Mine!

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:

The book It’s Mine! is a story of three frogs, Milton, Rupert, and Lydia who all live on an island. These frogs have a hard time getting along and they quarrel and quibble all day long. They fight over whose island it is that they live on, who gets the worm, and even who’s world it is they are in. One day a large toad comes over to talk to the three little frogs. He explains to them that he can hear them arguing all the way from his island and told them that they can’t go on like that. Then a great storm comes and the frogs are scared and sad. They only have each other and eventually only have one rock to share to keep them alive. Finally the storm subsides and the rock that saved them all is no rock at all, it is the large toad. From then on the frogs shared everything and appreciated each other and referred to everything on the island as theirs.

Objectives:

The students will demonstrate with their actions in the classroom of what a compassionate citizen does, in which the teacher will recognize and then reward with a stickers.

Materials:

Book It’s Mine!, by Leo Lionni

Compassion Chart

Stickers

Prize box

Compassionate Citizen Awards

Procedure:

1. The teacher will read the book It’s Mine! to the students.
2. Periodically, the teacher will stop during the book and point out times when the frogs do not share and when they do not show compassion towards the other frogs and their feelings.
3. The teacher will talk to the children about the word compassion and what it means.
4. The teacher will explain to the students that compassion is an emotion that shows caring for people and other things, not just yourself.
5. The teacher will talk to the students about why it is important to be compassionate and about how being compassionate is a large part of being a good citizen of a community or a classroom.
6. The teacher will explain to the students that there is going to be something new on their wall in the classroom.
7. The teacher will hold up the “compassion chart” to the class and will explain to the students that they will get a sticker on the chart each time the teacher sees him or her do something that shows they are being compassionate towards another student in the classroom.
8. The teacher will give some examples of what would be considered being a compassionate citizen of the classroom such as helping another student with a question they might have, letting a student get in front of you in the line, helping someone out when they are in need.
9. Once a student has received three stickers on the chart, they will be allowed to choose a prize from the prize box and they will also receive an award for being a good compassionate citizen of the classroom.
10. The teacher will explain to the students that she hopes that they will all work hard to help each other and respect and care for each other in the classroom so that their classroom will be a more compassionate place.