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Art By Elio
Where Will I Sit?
By Katie Mach
From the March/April 2024 Issue
Learning Objective: Students will discuss ways to effectively solve conflicts between friends.
About the Story
Social and Life Skills Focus
Friendship
Conflict resolution
English Language Arts Focus
Genres of Literature
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Implementation
- Morning Meeting: If you use your morning meeting to build your classroom community, this mini graphic is a great discussion prompt.
- Whole Group Activity: Once you’ve read and discussed the story, have children act out the different parts.
Pairings and Text Connections
- From the Storyworks archive: “Sticky Situation: Who Will I Play With?” (September 2022); “Sticky Situation: Bad Day!” (March/April 2023); “Sticky Situation: My Way” (May/June 2023)
- Suggested books: The Squirrels Who Squabbled by Rachel Bright; Rulers of the Playground by Jospeh Kuefler; There’s a Bear on My Chair by Ross Collins
Before-Reading Resources
Video: What's In a Comic? (5 minutes)
- Explore how comics use pictures, thoughts, and dialogue to tell a story.
Suggested Reading Focus
Solving conflicts with friends (20 minutes)
- Ask children if they can remember a time when they had a problem with a friend at school. What happened? What did they do? Why is it important to solve problems with friends? How did your friends respond when you solved the problem together?
- Read the comic aloud with expression. Check comprehension as you read each panel. Children can turn and talk to discuss what each picture tells them about the story and the characters.
- Then give children a chance to practice reading with fluency and expression. Choose volunteers for reading each part aloud.
- Discuss the Talk It Out questions as a class. Ask children to share examples from their own lives.
After-Reading Skills Practice
- Skills: Relationship skills; punctuation (15 minutes)
Extension Literacy Activity
Skill: Friendship/relationship skills (10 minutes)
Read the following social situations aloud. Ask students how they would handle the problem with friends:
- You and your friend want to read the same book from the library. How would you work it out?
- Your friend did not want to work with you on a partner project in class. How would you work it out?
- Your friend wants to play basketball during recess, but you want to play soccer. How would you work it out?
Text-to-Speech