Bully Be Gone
My students are interested in running an anti-bullying campaign by working on filling buckets instead of tipping them.
They are going to choose a focus word, create t-shirts, organize an assembly, create posters and create a hero board for students who are standing up for victims. They are also planning on leading the school in bucket filling and creating a positive atmosphere in the school.
They have already started by using encouraging words for teammates and for opposing team members and recognize how much more fun a game can be when the atmosphere is positive
Update
(June 16, 2014)
Our class of Grade 5 and 6 students have read novels about bullying in literature circles and responded well to the themes and the author's intent. We created art around shapes and each student was able to assign a role (bully, bullied, bystander) to a shape with good reasoning behind their decisions.
This unit had students thinking more seriously how they, as bystanders, could effectively reduce or eliminate bullying situations on the playground and elsewhere in their lives.