Hi Everyone,
Our first character of the year is Harmony. Below are resources that will help you in reinforcing the character in your classrooms. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Key Understandings:
Students will understand that…
- Harmony requires to look beyond appearances.
- Harmony allows room to grow
- Harmony requires tolerance
- Harmony requires self examination, and identifying your own tendencies.
- Harmony requires cooperation with others.
Essential Questions:
- What can you learn from those who think or express themselves differently?
- When did someone give you room to learn from your mistakes?
- How can you help someone learn from their mistakes?
- How do you stay focused on what is right, when you are tempted to do otherwise?
Literacy
Y1 Word trace Harmony word trace-v6i3lw
Y2-3 Copy I wills Copy I Will’s Harmony-19yki8t
Y4-6 Discuss the word etymology for harmony/ Unscramble the ‘I will’ statements I wills jumbled.-2kjz43y
Art
Activities
Cooperation: different activities involving cooperation—can be adapted for your year level COOPERATION-27y56c6
PE (Teambuilding)
Divide students into groups of 2.
Take them into a large room or outdoors.
Put an item an appropriate distance away from them.
Tie their legs together 3-legged-race style and tell them they need to work together to reach the item.
If they succeed without discord, they get to play with the item.
If they experience conflict, they need to start over again.
You can also divide them into bigger groups.
ICT Y3-6
Spend some time researching symbiotic relationships in nature, and parasitic relationships.
Explain to your children that there are special friendships (symbiotic mutualistic) in nature that are helping and harmonious relationships. Symbiotic mutualistic relationships occur when two different organisms (plant or animal species) live together and help each other survive. (For contrast, parasitic relationships where one organism benefits, while the other is harmed.)
An example of mutualistic relationships includes the crocodile and the thick knee (bird). The bird feeds on the food left between the crocodile’s teeth, and the crocodile benefits by having its teeth cleaned.
Science Experiment:
You will need 1 tbsp of vinegar, 1 tsp of baking soda, 2tbsp of water coloured with a few drops of red food colouring, and a small bowl.
- Begin by placing the vinegar in a bowl. The vinegar represents a child playing happily with a toy. The baking soda represents another chilinterrupting and asking for the toy. Add the baking soda to the vinegar and you will see a lot of fizz. Tell your children that the fizz is fighting. The first child says, “No, you can’t have my toy!” The second child starts yelling, “I’ll tell Mom and Dad if you don’t share!” Be sure to pour the red coloured water into the bowl before the fizzing stops. With the addition of the red water, all will be calm again.
- Explain that the red water represents love, kindness, forgiveness, etc. Summarize by saying that responding to others in difficult situations with love or any of the other character results in peace instead of discord.
- Have your children think of scenarios in their lives where they need to choose to respond in love to maintain harmony. Redo the experiment for each example and allow them to pour in the red water.
Chinese Culture
During Chinese culture time, discuss how Taoism and Confucianism teach about harmony. You can talk about the history of the Yin-Yang symbol and how it relates to harmony.
