If you missed out on Part I of my Pre-K Lesson Series, check it out here:

Pre-K Lesson Series Part I: Following Rules & Directions

To wrap up this 2-part series, I will be sharing one of my favorite lessons that I use with my Pre-K 4 students to teach them about kindness.

I start the lesson by reading One by Kathryn Otoshi. This book {which I included in my “Favorite Books for Elementary Classroom Lessons“ post} is fantastic. One of the main characters, Blue, is teased by another color, Red. The other colors/characters, Purple, Orange, Yellow, and Green, however, do not have the courage to stand up to Red. Then, the character One comes along, tells Red to not pick on Blue, and finds a way to make all of the colors feel included {even Red}. The last line of the book is, “Sometimes it only takes One.”

Needless to say, there are plenty of good lessons in this book. I talk about the story with the class and let them tell me what they think is important about it. Then I ask the students if they want to hear the story one more time {cue a huge roar of  ‘YES!’ by a group of 4 year olds}.

Before the lesson, I ask each Pre-K 4 teacher to provide me with a list of 7 students who they think have been exceptionally kind to others in the past week, and I use that list to pick my helpers for the next part of the lesson.

The 7 “chosen ones” are asked if they want to help me tell the story on the 2nd reading. No one has yet turned me down. Those 7 students are each given a part to act out, either a color character or the character of One.

I made the colors and number 1 pictured above out of construction paper and laminated them for reuse. Student helpers are given their corresponding pieces, and the re-telling of the story begins.

When I read the story the second time, the student helpers act out their parts, and sometimes I cue them to say certain lines that their characters say. The audience is told that they have an EXTREMELY important part to play towards the end of the story. When all of the colors stand up to Red in the book, the students in the “audience” all say “No!” as loud as they can so that they can help the colors stand up to Red.

The kids really seem to enjoy this story, and they LOVE acting out the different parts. How do you teach kindness to your Pre-K students? Leave a comment below with your favorite lessons!