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Peace Begins With You Lesson Plan

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Lesson Plan #:AELP-INT0053
Authors; School or Affiliation: Gina Brown; Cumberland College, Williamsburg, Ky.
Linda L. Reynolds; Whitley County Central Elementary, Williamsburg, Ky.
Larry Taylor; Knox Central High School, Barbourville, Ky.
Endorsed by: K. Dei Ofori-Attah, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Cumberland College Date: 1994

Grade Level(s): 2, 3, 4, 5

Subject(s):

  • Interdisciplinary
  • Social Studies
  • Arts

Overview: To look at peace at home and compare it to peace throughout the world.

Purpose: To increase students awareness of skills needed to live peacefully in society. These skills include listening to each other, problem-solving, cooperating, mediating problems, decision-making, and communication. Students will recognize and explore aspects of peace both at home and throughout the world. Peace must begin in ones own backyard.

Resources and Materials: Book entitled Peace Begins With You , by Katherine Scholes, Teacher’s Thematic Unit book Peace , by Mary Patricia Candace Martin, and videos are available from KET (Kentucky Educational Television) in Lexington, Ky., entitled Peace Corps.

  • Attachments

    • Attachments in .pdf format; requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

    Click the icon to obtain the free Reader.

Activities and Procedures:

  • Pre-activity: Put up a bulletin board entitled Peace Throughout the World.
  • Make cards with different pronunciations of Peace:
    • Arabic=sah-LAAM,
    • Polish=spoh-KOY,
    • Greek=eh-REE-nee,
    • Swahili=ah-MAHN-ee,
    • Chinese=hoh ping,
    • Italian=PAH-cheh,
    • Navaho=hoh-zho,
    • French=pay,
    • German=FREE-deh,
    • Hawaiian=mah-loo-HEE-ah,
    • Hebrew=sha-LOHM,
    • Spanish=pahth,
    • Russian=meer,
    • Irish=SHEE-ag-kahn
  • *Make interactive by attaching yarn to each card with the country name on it. Allow students to match the country to the place it corresponds to on the globe. Students can self-check by placing a map of the world close by.

Day 1

Objective:

Introduce terminology associated with talking about peace, feelings, and working with anger management.

Materials: Pencils and paper.

Activities:

1. Discuss Feelings with the students.
2. Brainstorm a list of Peace words. Write them on charts to save until the last session. New words may be added at this time. You may wish to make separate lists for: What does peace sound like, feel like, look like, not sound like, not feel like, not sound like.
3. Have each student write a brief essay about what Peace means to them.
4. If time permits allow some students to share their work.
5. Take up essays to redistribute at the end of the unit, for a compare/contrast essay. Students can at this time compare what they have learned with what they knew. Students can then write a self-evaluation.

Day 2

Objectives:

To learn to say the word Peace in different languages.
To use feeling words to let others know how you feel.

Materials: Book about Peace. Cards with different pronunciations of Peace in various languages. Worksheet on Feelings.

Activities:

1. Read the students a book about Peace. Some suggestion include Law of the Great Peace and Peace Begins With You.
2. Go over how to say Peace in several different languages. Choose one to be the language of the day. Display it on the bulletin board. Have the students to use this pronunciation several times throughout the lesson.
3. Discuss with the students how nice it is to say complimentary things to one another. Make a point of how the statements should be specific, and how everyone should be included. Write a few examples on the board.
4. Use a worksheet (attached) to have the students to write feeling sentences to one another. Have the students to write their name on the top of the paper. They leave that paper on their desk. Students then get up and walk to other desks in some designated fashion,writing in one of the available spaces, something to the person who sits in that desk. When all spaces are filled they can return to their desks and read what was written to them. Have each student share their favorite they received.

Day 3

Objectives:

To learn Peace in several languages.
To use the newspaper to scan for information
To look in the newspaper for current articles concerning peace.

Materials: Newspapers, scissors, glue, large sheets of paper or posters.

Activities:

1. Add a different language pronunciation of Peace to the bulletin board.
2. Demonstrate how someone might use the newspaper to scan for specific information. Find an article that might suggest peace and cut it out. Place it on a sheet of paper to be hung in the hall with everyone’s articles. Label the bulletin board Our Wall of Peace.
3. Distribute newspapers to students and have them scan for articles about peace. Have them cut out their article and glue it to a sheet of paper and write their name on the paper. Have staple their article to the bulletin board in the hallway, or take them up and display them for the students.

Day 4

Objectives:

To learn Peace in several languages.
To use encyclopedias to conduct research.
To learn about different people important to the peace movement.

Materials: Paper, pencils, and encyclopedias.

Activities:

1. Add another card to the bulletin board with another pronunciation of peace.
2. Discuss how different people have helped to make the world a better place to live. Have the students to name as many people as they can. List these on a large sheet of paper on the board. Add other names to make the list long enough for each student to have their own person to research.
3. Go to the library and allow each student to research their person. Use the attached form for the students final report. Display them on the Wall of Peace.

Suggestions for research: Abraham Johannes Muste, Albert Luthull, Albert Schweltzer, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Carmen Delgado Votaw, Cesar Chavez, Dag Hammarskjold, George Fox, George C. Marshall, Jane Adams, Jeannette Rankin, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Norman Thomas, Rosa Parks, Sarah Winemucca, Shirley Chisholm, Teddy Roosevelt, William Penn, Woodrow Wilson, Chief Seattle, Alfred Nobel.

Day 5

Objectives:

To learn Peace in several languages.
To use encyclopedias to conduct research.
To learn about different people importantto the peace movement.

Materials: Paper, pencils, and encyclopedias.

Activities:

1. Add a new pronunciation to the bulletin board.
2. Review purpose of research.
3. Have students continue research.
4. If through with research, find a book about Peace to share with the class. Read the book, and either give a book summary or read the book aloud to the class.

Day 6

Objectives:

To learn Peace in several languages.
To learn about different people contributions to the Peace Movement.
For students to present information to an audience.

Activities:

1. Add a new pronunciation to the bulletin board. Review all others.
2. Allow each student to present report to class.
3. Place reports on the Peace Wall in the hallway.

Day 7

Objectives:

To learn Peace in several languages.
To allow students to present information to an audience,
To recognize symbols of Peace.

Materials: Scissors, construction paper, markers or crayons, hole-punch, yarn, clothes hangers.

Activities:

1. Add a new pronunciation of the word Peace to the bulletin board.
2. Allow students to present any reports not previously given, or read a book they have selected on peace.
3. Brainstorm to create a list of symbols that represent peace.
4. Have the students to work in groups to make a mobile of peace symbols. Hang their mobiles above their desks.

Day 8

Objectives:

To learn Peace in several languages.
To use information gained to create a work of art about peace.

Materials: Muslin cloth squares, markers, paint, scissors, cloth of different colors, glue, yarn, and backing material. Someone to sew the quilt together.

Activities:

1. Add a new pronunciation of the word Peace to the bulletin board.
2. Have each student to create the a square for the quilt. Their square should represent what peace means to them.
3. Try to get a parent volunteer to put the quilt together.

Day 9

Objectives:

To review all pronunciations of Peace.
To work cooperatively in a group to accomplish a common goal.
To compare and contrast feeling about peace.

Activities:

1. Have students match up foreign pronunciation with the name of the language.
2. Let student play The Human Pretzel Game, and it’s variations.
(Page 37 of Teacher Crafted Materials’ book Peace).
3. Hand back students essays written at the beginning of the unit.
Let them read them, and then have them to write a new essay (hopefully more meaningful now). They may also write about an activity we did that they particularly liked.
4. Have students share their essays.
5. Have students write self-evaluation about what they have learned and done in this unit, and about the improvement of their essay.

References:

Some ideas for activities came from Teacher Crafted Materials, Peace , Thematic Unit book, Huntington Beach, CA.

Useful Internet Resource:
* Students’ Art for Peace
A global program to help students of different cultures communicate through the exchange of their artwork.
http://art-for-peace.org/

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