Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes	Tune In: Watch the episode
10 minutes	Find Out: Friendships
30 minutes	Take Action: Getting to know you
5 minutes	Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

identify personal strengths and celebrate the diversity of unique individuals in the classroom
collect data and present their findings.

Success criteria

Students can:

nominate unique facts about themselves, including something they're 'great' at
conduct a survey about their classmate's favourite things
draw a column graph.

Tune In: Watch the episode

Step 1.

Share the Bluey episode Army with your students.

Bluey 'Army' - Clickview (https://clickv.ie/w/9sax)

Army synopsis: Jack’s the new dog at school and the newest recruits in Rusty’s army. Jack struggles with the following instructions and always forgets hit hat but Rusty will make a soldier of him yet.

Step 2.

Facilitate a class discussion about the episode using the following questions as prompts for your students

I wonder how Jack felt when he first arrived at school?
I wonder how Jack felt when Rusty said he was really good at sentry? How do you know?
I wonder how Jack felt when he ran faster than Rusty?
When Rusty and Jack were in the treehouse, I wonder what Jack meant when he said "there's something wrong with me"? Do you think there was something "wrong" with Jack?
What words would you use to describe Rusty? What kind of dog is he?

Step 3.

You might like to prompt your students to finish the following sentence stem:

In this episode, I saw someone being friendly to people when...

Find Out: Friendships

Step 1.

Conduct a discussion with your students about friendship. Being by asking them to share some memories of when they first started at school.

How were they feeling when they first came to school?
How did reality compare to what they imagined?

Now ask students to think about how they choose their friends.

Do they remember the first person they talked to at school? Was it someone they are still friends with today?
Why did you choose the friends you did?

Lead your students to discuss the reasons why they are friends with particular people. Is it because they had shared interests or perhaps because they liked the specific qualities about someone.

Step 2.

Jack lists a lot of things he's "not good at" - doing what he's told, sitting still, remembering things like numbers, letters, and his hat.

Ask your students:

What would students say to one of their friends if they were talking negatively about themselves in a similar way?

Encourage students to see that everyone is unique, talented and interesting in their own way.

Step 3.

Ask students to nominate one thing they are proud of themselves for. For example, "I am a great reader" or "I am great at spelling."

Take Action: Getting to know you

Step 1.

Have the class sit in a circle. This game is a lot easier if you have chairs, but you can still do it sitting on the floor - just make sure there are no gaps.

Step 2.

Ask one student to volunteer to be in the middle of the circle - or you can play too. Take away one chair from the circle, so that there is one less chair than students participating.

Step 3.

Ask the student in the middle to nominate a fact about themselves. For example, "I have a pet cat." Anyone else who shares that fact (eg also has a pet cat) has to stand up.

Everyone who is now standing up has to switch seats. Remind students not to run and crash into one another as they are switching.

A new student will be left standing in the middle of the circle without a seat. Now it's their turn to nominate a fact about themselves, and start another round of chair swapping.

Sometimes a student might nominate something about themselves that no one else can relate to. Use this as an opportunity to speak to the uniqueness of that student!

Step 4.

When you've played enough rounds, remind students of how diverse the class is. It would be boring if everyone was exactly the same person. However, there are also lots of things that students share in common. It's nice to be able to share interests with someone.

Step 5.

As a class, brainstorm some simple questions you could ask the class to get to know them better. Create a list on the whiteboard. Closed questions with a maximum of three answers work best for this survey. For example:

What is your favourite kind of pet? Dog, cat, fish, or other?
What is your favourite sport to play on the weekend? AFL, Netball, Soccer, or other?
What is your favourite ice-cream flavour? Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, or other?

Step 6.

Independently, students use the Student Worksheet as a template for creating a survey and graph. Encourage your student to write their question along the top line in the worksheet, and the three answers in the boxes along the bottom. Students could also add a little picture to remind them what the answers are.

Step 7.

Once everyone is ready to go with their survey, line up in two lines, facing opposite ways. This method ensures everyone in the class is surveyed, and no data gets missed as would happen if you were randomly surveying people.

Line A -------------------->

<-------------------- Line B

Step 8.

Students in Line A ask the student opposite them in Line B their survey question. Students record the response by placing an 'X' in the space above the answer. Further responses should be stacked on top of one another according to the dotted lines. Once line A has recorded their answer invite the students in Line B to ask their question of Line A and record their response in the same way.

Once everyone has filled in their survey, everyone moves one place forward. When students get to the end of Line A, they flip around and join Line B, and the same with the end of Line B. This ensures everyone asks their question of the whole class.

Students worksheets will look a little something like this in the end.

What is your favourite subject?


		x
		x
x		x
x	x	x	x
Maths	Science	P.E	Other

Step 9.

At the end of the process, ask students to colour in all the squares with an 'X' in them, with each answer having a different colour. This will complete a column graph which is quick and easy to read.

Reflection

Invite students to reflect on the lesson. Ask students,

What do you think we were practising?
What qualities do you think are important in a friend? Or, what makes a person friendly?

Friendly people understand others' emotions and perspectives, show sympathy and empathy, know how to participate in a conversation, are capable of compromise, know how to apologize, and have an awareness of how their emotional responses impact others’ feelings.

Friendship - Connecting with Classmates

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables

Friendship - Connecting with Classmates

Summary

Lesson Guides and Printables