After classroom discussions and activities to exemplify positive relationships through fair play and friendship, the higher level students in the class will each make their own ABC books to illustrate many ways to play fairly and how to treat friends. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

The four activities in this lesson will provide students opportunities to enhance friendships. Students will also learn to demonstrate appropriate ways to behave in different settings.

In this lesson, students share great ideas as they work with a partner to design a fun card game that is all about caring.

In this activity, students will work in pairs while addressing the social dilemma of who gets to be the leader and who follows, a common strain in relationships. The children try both roles as they take turns being the leader; thus, learning respect for the other when they follow and building confidence when they lead.

In this activity, students choose a positive behavior, such as how to be a good friend, to illustrate on a poster.

In this lesson, students read books, listen to music, and watch videos about friendship. Then students will make a heart-shaped puzzle with classmates. Divide the heart into enough pieces so that each person in the class will have one, including the teacher, and then put the puzzle back together.

In this lesson, students identify and demonstrate what being a good citizen involves.

In this lesson, studnets learn about saving, spending, decision making and opportunity cost. They learn to use a decision-making grid to make decisions. Mathematics skills include learning about rows and columns in a grid.

In this activity, students explore opportunities to share while learning about human differences and similarities.

In this lesson, the students will use the problem-solving process to address common problems that arise in a kindergarten classroom and/or on the playground. The teacher will pose the problems and lead the students through the problem-solving process.

Students will explore the idea that they are interconnected to many larger communities (classroom, school, family, neighborhood, city, world, etc.) They will also explore the need for these communities to have systems in place where each person plays a role in making the systems function. We will specifically explore the need for, and create, systems that allow us to work, learn and play together in our kindergarten classroom. The creation of rules, jobs, and routines will be the core of this unit. Documenting and sharing these systems will be the product.

In this lesson, students learn to demonstrate cooperation with others and how to identify feelings related to repect and disrespect.

In this lesson, students learn to demonstrate cooperation with others and illustrate actions of a respectful citizen.

In this lesson, students learn to demonstrate what being a good citizen involves.

Kindergarten students are encouraged to gain an increased awareness of themselves and the world around them in our entry level text in the series.

This chapter is all about history. In future grades students begin to learn about the history of our state, our country, and our world. In the early grades however, students learn about history through a much smaller lens. In first grade it’s about families.

You may be tempted to skip this short section. It is brief in comparison to previous chapters but it is ultimately one of the most important. Students have spent their entire class period up to this point exploring and learning more about foundational social studies concepts. This is the chapter that puts it all together.

In this lesson, students play a series of games to help them learn the names of classmates. They will also answer questions about themselves so that their classmates can learn more about them. Students can compare themselves to other classmates and identify similarities.

Students will use the problem-solving process to address common problems that arise in a kindergarten classroom and/or on the playground. The teacher will pose the problems and lead the students through the problem-solving process.

The NC Office of Early Learning strongly encourages incorporating play into the daily routine of each classroom.
Children grow and learn in all developmental domains through their engagement in centers; cognitive, physical, social, and emotional. Authentic learning and meaningful connections are made when a teacher intentionally weaves standards and supports development throughout children’s play. PlaytoLearn Center Posters provide information about common areas of development supported during play centers along with prompts connected to kindergarten standards and NC ELI dimensions.

PlaytoLearn Planning Guides (also shared on #GoOpenNC) provide information on why each center is important to children's development, tips for setting up centers, sugessted materials, actions of an intentional teacher, and common connections children make to content. Although these resources are specifically written for kindergarten, teaching and learning strategies can be applied to many grade levels.