Fair play is a perfect topic for first graders! At this age many are still of the opinion that fair only applies to them. This month's video and activities has changed their view however.
Nate Hinze did a wonderful job explaining what fair play means and that it could be seen everywhere, not just in sports or the playground. After watching and discussing his video a few times, we went to the Epic! book site and read a book about playing fair. The students were able, with a little prompting, to connect the situation in the story with the topic our mentor had explained to them.
The students then became absorbed in finding as many examples of not showing fair play as they could. They pointed it out everywhere we went. They found examples such as it peeking when playing hide and seek, starting early in a running race, giving a team mate the answer in our math game, and cheating on tests. We discussed each one and how that situation could be changed to show fair play instead. Most of them were able to come up with at least one solution to the problem behavior.
And while I was happy that they were beginning to notice all of this, I found we had one big problem. My students only saw the behaviors in other students. So I decided to change that. I reminded them that our mentor's challenge was to write 2 examples of them showing fair play and told them that they could only share fair or unfair play that they themselves had done.
Sharing time suddenly got very quiet. No one wanted to say anything so I started pointing out examples of fair play that I saw. They loved hearing me praising them in front of their friends, and once they realized they could talk about times they showed fair play, they were on the hunt to find something to share.
And just like that things started to change. I saw some students start to make an unfair move in a game and then stop. Other students playing games like tag took their turn as it when touched instead of swearing they weren't touched. When the time came to write their examples, they were more than ready.
They haven't perfected the concept of fair play and some are still struggling with it but we are working hard on it.
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