Superheroes are such an interest to children these days, there's no way around it. Rather than ban superhero activity in our classroom, we decided to embrace it. Not the fighting, not shooting bad guys, but with a focus on how Superheroes help.
Our Superheroes have a few rules to follow, the biggest is that
Superheroes HELP, not hurt.
In addition, our Superheroes follow these rules:
1. There is never any fighting, shooting or unwanted chasing of others.
This goes against the not hurting rule, and unwanted chasing leads to "GET HIM!" and can be scary for the child being chased.
2. There are absolutely no weapons (toys or imaginary) allowed.
Again, against the not hurting rule.
3. More than one person can be the same Superhero, just as no one is to be forced to play a role that they do not wish to have.
This stops people form being excluded, especially since they all love the same Superheroes. We like to create new colors; for example, the red Ironman and the yellow Ironman.
Here is a link to the letter we sent home for our families.
When we play outside, students are encouraged to find ways to help others. Today Madisyn (aka Supergirl) asked teachers and peers how she could help them; she was able to find Mrs. Scapellati's lost car and fix it, get Ms. Perkowski and much needed strawberry blueberry chocolate ice cream, and sweep all of the sand back into the sandbox for safety.
We began our unit with a discussion about who helps our community of Bristol. Firefighters, police officers and nurses were a few; then we talked about how they help the community and what they look like. We've been building cities and using our community helper figures to role play helping in the community.
Next we began talking about Superheroes; who are they and what do they look like. Tomorrow we will add to our web by posing the question, "What does a Superhero do to help his or her community?"
Next we will talk about how Superheroes help their communities, how WE can help our community and what it really means to be a hero.
Update 7.13.2015
We really love to talk about Superheroes! We're discovering what it really means to be a hero and using it in our every day language. Here are some updates since the last post.
We had group discussions about Superheroes and how they help the community, what problems we have in our community and what we can do to help.
This morning teachers posed the question, "What is a hero?" and "How can we be heroes?" Students brainstormed answers; this is a chart we will be adding to over a long period of time!
Students looked at what Superheroes wore and they symbols on their clothing. Superman has his S, Batman has a bat and Spiderman has a spider. Each students imagined and described what they symbol would be, then created it on paper. They dictated to a teacher what made them a HERO.
But we're not finished just yet! Next week we may be exploring a different topic, but our discuss and learning about heroes and helping has just begun!
To see all of the pictures up to this point,
click here!
Check back regularly for additional photos, information and ideas!
