Teamwork

Learning to respect and to help one another is key to enjoyment and success in school, family, and work. Cross-age learning provides a uniquely powerful means to enable both students and teachers to stimulate and support one another. Following are sample lesson plans for this crucial area.

Title of Lesson:Portraits

Grade Range: 1+4. 2+5, 3+6
Introduction:
Day 1 of meeting your buddy. Find out about buddy. Draw and color buddy’s face (portrait).

Materials needed:
Paper, pencils, crayons, clipboards of you have them.

Methodology

1. Buddies meet for the first time.
2. They ask a few questions.
3. Sit facing each other.
4. Draw buddy’s face and color.
5. Buddies can visit and get to know each other while working on the portraits.

6. Teachers can collect and put in 2 books, one for each classroom. Books can be traded. Students can look at books during choice times.

Title of Lesson: Getting to Know Your Buddy

Teacher Contributor: Liza
Grade Range: K-6.

Introduction: Linnea (4th grade teacher) and I (Kindergarten) have been working together with buddy classes for five years. This is our favorite introductory lesson.

Materials needed:
1 Venn Diagram per pair (or a triad Venn if you have a triad due to numbers) and sidewalk chalk for the early finisher activity.

Methodology:

1. The teachers demonstrate Venn Diagram on white board and how to use it to chart buddies’ “likes.” For example, as we two teachers ask each other and talk aloud about the things we like, Linnea writes pasta, skiing (favorite sport), 3 brothers and 1 sister in her circle; I write paddling and 1 brother in my circle; and we write dogs, blue (favorite color), and Hawaii in the shared area where our circles overlap.

2. Kindergartners can draw and big buddies can write on the Venn Diagram. They discover a lot about themselves through this process and it is a fun way to actually use a Venn Diagram for the subject they are most interested in - themselves!

3. Early finishers can go outside with one of the teachers and each write their names on the pavement. They talk about the letters in their names and compare letters. They circle the letters that are common to both of their names.

Title of Lesson: Goodbye Picnic

Grade Range: K-6

Introduction:
At the end of the year, buddies meet to say goodbye and to eat lunch together.

Materials needed:
Paper art supplies, game supplies, own lunches, blankets for grass, drinks, cookies, apples, and oranges.

Methodology

1. Before the picnic, big and little buddies make Thank You cards and Goodbye cards for each other in their own classrooms.

2. Picnic Day (get parents to help), walk to grassy area at school or nearby park or lunch benches away from others at school. Buddies eat lunch together and give each other cards, and play a few games together, such as wheelbarrow race, sack race, egg-spoon race.

Home - Principal Support - Teacher Support - Teacher Teaming  - Student Startup - Importance of Processing

Lesson Plans:
Teamwork - Language Arts - ESL - Mathematics - Science - Social Studies - The Arts -PE