Sunday, 10 July 2016

Teaching resilience KS2: Perfect Square by Michael Hall


Teaching resilience – KS2                                                                       
Text: Perfect Square by Michael Hall
Lesson plan by Andrew Moffat / www.equalitiesprimary.com
Resources: lots of squares, scissors, glue
LI To develop skills in resilience
Starter: Write ‘resilience’ on the board. Children in pairs to come up with a definition and then feed back to class. Can we come up with a class definition? What does the dictionary give as a definition?

Main : Read “Perfect Square”.
Discussion: what happens in this story, what happens to the square on its journey through the story? Which do you think was the most difficult challenge for the square? (when the square was torn in to scraps, shredded, or shattered etc)? Each time the square faced a new challenge, what did it do? How do you think the square felt when faced with each challenge? How do you think square felt each time it found a solution? When do you think the square is happiest?
Why do you think at the end, when square gets its shape back, it doesn’t stop? Why does square change in to a window?
Activity: Use the story as stimulus for an art session. Give each child squares of paper and go through the book; at each stage asking children to follow instructions given in the story (shatter the square/ rip it up etc) and then re-model the shapes in to a new image. The children could use the image suggested in the story or create  their own. Either use as a whole class activity with every child making multiple square images or give each table their own instructions and encourage children to work together to create images using co-operation.
Plenary:  How is the square showing resilience in this story? Lots of things happen to square and it has to think of new responses at every stage; does square ever give up and remain torn, crumpled or in pieces? Why do you think square does not give up? What does square want to show us? What is the message in this story?
Think about the ending; square could have stayed as a square for ever but it chose to change in to a window; what do you think the author is trying to tell us about change?
When we meet challenges in life; when things happen that we find difficult, what do we need to do?
In the story, square remains alone but in our lives there are people around us. If you are facing difficulty, who can you ask for help?

Suggested AFL questions: Today I have learned… resilience means….. When I experience challenges, I will… 
Re-visit the definition of resilience made in the starter- do we went to change it?

“No Outsiders in our school: Teaching the equality act in Primary Schools” by Andrew Moffat available from www.speechmark.net

For more lesson plans and resources see www.equalitiesprimary.com






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