Values and Ethics for the Humanist Child: Teaching preschoolers to value perseverance

Posted by Breeze on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 8:38 am
Category: Breeze

I haven’t been whipping up lessons for the character education program I’m so interested in as quickly as I had hoped, but I’ve had another simmering. I think it still needs some work, so suggestions are welcome.

Objectives

to introduce the idea of perserverance.
to encourage children to practice perserverance.
to learn about insects and arachnids.
to create insect-related crafts.

Materials

Eric Carle’s The Very Quiet Cricket
Eric Carle’s The Very Busy Spider
Stack of insect and spider books from library
construction paper, scissors, markers, crayons, glue, pipe cleaners, popcicle sticks, yarn

Steps

Ask children to point to their feet, hands, elbows, noses, etc. ending with asking them to point to their wings.
Ask children to find their pretend wings (arms? shoulder blades? invisible?) and flap them then rub them together.
Read The Very Quiet Cricket and ask children to rub their pretend wings together when the cricket does the same.
Ask children what the cricket does when he isn’t able to make a sound.
Ask about times when they have tried and tried again to do something that was hard for them.
Ask why it might be important to keep trying and discuss.
Read The Very Busy Spider.
Ask why the spider keeps working on her web.
Ask children if they have ever had to keep working on a task when there were more fun options.
Ask why sticking to a task might be an important thing to do and discuss.
Ask how many legs an insect has and how many a spider has.*
Share insect and spider books and encourage children to flip through them.
Show children the art supplies and help them to select what they want to create their own insects and spiders.
Free play time.