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UNIT 1
Working & playing together
Focus
realise that you don’t have to be friends with
everybody but you can be friendly towards all.
They will identify how cooperative skills can be
used in real-life contexts. This unit introduces
personal goal setting and reflection that can be
continued in further units once the practice is
established.
Major concepts
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This unit is about belonging, friendship and the
importance of working and playing together.
During the unit students will be introduced
to a cooperative skills framework (see page 34)
where skills will be explicitly taught. They will
have opportunities to practise these skills when
working in group situations. They will also
identify the characteristics of good friends and
• Our choices and actions can
affect our friendships.
• We all belong to many different
groups for a variety of reasons. • Every member of a group has
the responsibility to cooperate
• When people work and play
with and show respect for other
cooperatively they can achieve
group members.
many things and also have fun.
• The choices we make affect the
way we can work together.
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Understandings
responsibility
diversity
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change
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systems
Questions
Rich question
How can we make our classroom a friendly and cooperative place?
Contributing questions
• Why do we belong to different groups?
• What are the benefits of working in groups?
• How do groups work together well?
• What are the qualities of good friends?
• Why is it important to have friends?
• How can we work and play together better?
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Resources
Fox, M. 1985, Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge, Kane/Miller Books, New York.
Books
Galdone, P. 1985, The Little Red Hen, Clarion Books, New York.
Heide, F. P. 2007, That’s What Friends Are For, Candlewick Press, Cambridge, USA.
Lewis, K. 1998, Friends, Candlewick Press, Cambridge, USA.
Pfister, M. 2006, Rainbow Fish Finds His Way, North South Books, London.
Audiovisual
Charlotte’s Web, Hanna-Barbera Productions, DVD (2006)
Charlotte’s Web, Paramount Pictures, DVD, animated version (1973)
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Photographs students bring from home
26 The Essentials—Lower Primary
Assessment strategies
The following strategies are designed to assist teachers in collecting assessment information throughout
the unit.
When
What
During the Building ‘Groups I Belong To’
stage and at the end Poster (or book)
of the Investigating
stage
Cooperative Skills,
Goal Setting and
Reflection
How
Students create individual posters
or books early in the Building
stage, recording groups they
belong to and some features of the
groups. Poster or book outlines are
detailed on the Groups I Belong To
sheets in the Student Workbook.
After the Investigation stage they
add personal responses to the
poster or book.
To assess students’ ability to begin
to reflect, set personal goals and
self-evaluate.
At the end of the Building stage,
students complete a reflection
and goal-setting activity based
on the cooperative skills that
have been introduced (see Table
5 on page 22). Use the recording
sheets Reflection Activity (1) and
(2) in the Student Workbook. This
could be rehearsed by using the
strategy ‘laying it on the line’:
draw an imaginary line across the
classroom or playground. One end
of the line represents ‘Very often’,
and the other end represents ‘Not
very often’. Ask the students the
reflective questions in the Student
Workbook. Students stand on
the line to indicate their personal
response to the question. Discuss
why they placed themselves where
they did. At the reflection stage of
Personalising, the students revisit
their goals and reflect orally upon
how they went, as a whole class
and then in small groups. They
record their personal responses on
Reflection Activity (3) recording
sheet in the Student Workbook.
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At the end of
Building stage
and during the
Personalising stage
Why
To determine students’
understandings about groups
they belong to and their roles and
responsibilities in these groups.
At the end of the
Investigating stage
Assessment Task
To assess what students know
about cooperative behaviour,
cooperative skills and the qualities
of friends. To determine whether
they can apply this to real-life
situations.
On the two-page Assessment
Task in their Student Workbook,
students draw and write about
situations where people are
working together cooperatively,
and times when they aren’t. They
also draw and write about things
good friends do, and don’t do. As
an alternative, this task could also
be done through role play, with the
teacher taking anecdotal notes for
assessment purposes.
Unit 1—Working and playing together 27
Building
Group activities
Overview
Set up a variety of group activities that
involve different learning styles, for example:
Students investigate the different groups to which
they belong, and they identify some of their roles
and responsibilities in these groups. Students
develop and practise group skills.
Immersion
Picture chat
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family groups
friendship groups
sporting teams or activity groups/clubs
class group.
Discuss and list the variety of groups students
belong to (include school, class and various
friendship groups) and particular features about
these groups. Add to this list as students discover
different groups throughout the unit. Students
complete the What Kinds of Groups Are There?
sheet in the Student Workbook.
Discoveries and Wonderings
Brainstorm all the things students already
know about groups and working in groups.
Develop questions about groups and working
and playing together. Establish a Discoveries
and Wonderings board (see page 16) and
record questions as wonderings. As answers
to these wonderings are discovered, add
them to the discoveries section. Constantly
revisit and add to these boards or charts
throughout the unit. Students can also use
the Wonderings sheet in the Student Workbook
to record their questions.
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•
•
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Students bring in photos of groups they belong to,
such as:
• beanbag scramble or tabloid sports* (see
below for explanations of these games)
• construction activity using boxes,
cardboard, string, glue, tape, etc. Set a
problem to be solved, such as making a
bridge for Lego™ people to get from one
side of a river to the other
• team noughts and crosses or
Scattegories™.
These could be done as whole-class
activities or a carousel. Discuss which
activities students enjoyed most and what
they liked about working in groups. Discuss
what working in a group looked like,
sounded like and felt like using the Y Chart
(page 33).
*In beanbag scramble students are divided into teams that stand an equal distance away
from a centre point. Each team has a hula hoop on the ground beside them marking their home
base. Beanbags are grouped at the centre point. On the whistle, one member from each team at a
time runs to the centre, collects a beanbag and brings it back to their hoop. As soon as the player
is behind the hoop, the next team member can run to collect another beanbag. This continues
until all the beanbags have been collected. Teams can then ‘steal’ beanbags from other groups. The
game ends when the whistle blows. The winner is the team with the most beanbags.
Tabloid sports is where students are put into groups and rotate around a series of sporting
activities such as skittles, skipping, tunnel ball, throw the ball in the bucket, quoits, relay races.
28 The Essentials—Lower Primary
GATHERING
PROCESSING
The Gathering and Processing tasks are designed to work together and run hand in hand. Students ‘gather’ new
information, then use the processing task to sort out, analyse and make sense of the new information.
Direct experience
Direct experience
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Groups I belong to
Students choose two of their photos or drawings of different
groups they belong to. They complete the sentences on the
Groups I Belong To worksheets in the Student Workbook to
describe:
• the people who belong in the group
• what they do when they meet
• some things they do in the group (roles and
responsibilities)
• the good things about belonging to this group.
Using the photos and sentences, students make a poster of
‘Groups I belong to’. Alternatively, students could include
more pictures and create a personal book.
Direct experience
Direct experience
Groups I belong to
Refer back to Immersion activity when students brought in
photos of groups they belong to. Using the photos or drawings
students made of the different groups they belong to, they
sort the pictures into categories, for example, family groups,
friendship groups, school groups, sporting groups. Compare
and discuss the groups in the photos, for example, some family
groups contain three members, some have five members and
some have eight members, Peter and Con both belong to the
same scout group, Louise has a different coloured uniform to
Mala because they play for different netball teams.
Discuss the following questions.
• Who belongs to the group?
• What do they do when they meet?
• What are the roles and responsibilities of group members?
• What is good about belonging to this group?
Direct experience
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Model the friendship groups using a Venn diagram. Compare
the similarities and differences between two friendship
groups that students belong to. In pairs, students then
complete the Venn Diagram in the Student Workbook,
comparing two of their friendship groups. Discuss the things
students put into the middle of the Venn diagram to show
what friendship groups have in common. For example, they
contain two or more people, they enjoy playing together, etc.
Cooperative tasks
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Cooperative tasks
After each session on a skills group, discuss how well
the students displayed the skills being practised. Use the
Cooperative Skills at Work chart on page 34 to record what
happens when using these skills. Display these charts in the
classroom and refer to them whenever students are involved
in group tasks.
Cooperative tasks
Introduce to the students the skills listed on the four charts
about cooperative skills in the Student Workbook: Personal
Skills, Group Skills, Responding to Others, and Thinking and
Reflecting. Each group of skills needs to be discussed separately,
in its own session, and a corresponding activity gives students
the opportunity to develop and practise these skills. (See below
for guidelines on this.)
Begin each session by reading through the skills listed on the
skills sheet in the Student Workbook and discussing what you
would be doing if you were practising this skill. Then explain
the cooperative task below to the students, stressing the
importance of trying to practise the skills during the activity.
Personal skills
Allocate partners at random, such as by pulling names out of a
hat. Give each pair a drawing task with 10 minutes to complete
the drawing. Students change partners several times during
the session, each time getting a different drawing task. For
example, draw pictures of groups working well together, groups
not playing well together, friends having fun, a family group on
a picnic, a sporting team winning.
Group skills
Allocate the roles of reporter, recorder (and encourager) to pairs
or groups of three. See the Group Skills Activity worksheets in
the Student Workbook for the role descriptions. Ask the groups
to brainstorm and list things that good friends do. Students
prioritise the list and report the top three back to the class.
Direct experience
Read some picture storybooks about friends or friendship.
There are some listed in the Resources section. Discuss the
importance of friendship and how we can have many different
friends. Emphasise the different friendship groups we can have,
for example, school friends, neighbourhood friends, friends
through a sporting club, friends at Croatian school. Establish an
agreed understanding of what a friend is.
Continued
>>
Unit 1—Working and playing together 29
Cooperative tasks
Cooperative tasks
Responding to others
Organise an orienteering/treasure hunt around the school
which students do in pairs or groups of three.
Thinking and reflecting
In pairs or groups of three, students make a hat out of
newspaper, scissors and sticky tape. Before they start the task,
review all the skills taught and practised so far. Select one as
a goal for improvement. (You may decide on one goal for the
whole class or each group may choose their own goal.) At the
completion of the task, use the Thinking and Reflecting Task
sheet in the Student Workbook to evaluate how the students
went with their goal setting.
Making connections
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Reflection activity
Assessment task: ‘Groups I belong to’ poster
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Review all of the skills taught and practised so far. Ask students
to reflect and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses using the
Reflection Activity (1) and (2) sheets in the Student Workbook.
(Reflection Activity (1) is also on page 36; it can be enlarged to A3
size for class work.) Each student chooses one skill they would like
to work on for the rest of the unit.
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Students add any further ideas they have to their poster or
book. They add a further comment about the cooperative skills
they need to use when they contribute to this group.
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Discoveries and Wonderings board
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Revisit the Discoveries and Wonderings board. If any questions
have been answered, add this information to the discoveries
board. Add further questions the students have to the wonderings
board. Check that the recorded discoveries are correct and revise
them if there is any new or additional information.
30 The Essentials—Lower Primary
Investigating
Overview
Students further investigate the characteristics and behaviours of good friends in a variety of
real-life contexts.
Question for investigation
How can we work and play together well?
Students draw, paint or collage the characters
and events discussed to form a cooperative
class mural, or use the Investgating sheet in the
Student Workbook.
Students identify events in their lives when they
have or haven’t cooperated in group or friendship
situations. They role-play these situations and
identify the effects of people’s actions.
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Students role-play some of the events in the story
that were discussed. Role-play some alternative
scenarios, for example, what if Templeton hadn’t
cooperated in the end?
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View the DVD Charlotte’s Web or another film
where the characters are required to cooperate
as a group to achieve a goal. Discuss the ways
in which the characters cooperated. Identify
characters and events where some of the
cooperative skills introduced in the Building stage
were demonstrated. Establish the cause and effect
of certain characters’ behaviours.
Organising for investigation
2 Investigating cooperative skills
through group activities
Students participate in more cooperative
group activities that could include taking
on specific roles, for example, reporter,
recorder, encourager, timekeeper, manager,
clarifier. Before starting the activity,
students set goals; at the end they
complete self and peer evaluations.
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1 Investigating cooperative skills
through literature and role play
Students read other stories where
group members and/or friends
cooperate or don’t cooperate,
and view them through role-play
situations. Identify the cause and
effect of characters’ actions. Build
up stronger ideas about what the
cooperative skills are like in the
different situations.
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The following suggestions are ways in which the investigation can be taken further. Based on the students’ needs, interests
and questions, select the most appropriate option.
3 Further investigation into
friendship
Students explore the concept of
friendship further by surveying other
people (students, parents, other
family members, teachers) to find out
what they value about their friends.
Students create profiles about their
friends and what is special about them.
They identify the effects of certain
behaviours in friendship situations.
Making connections
Brainstorming
Brainstorm and list reasons why it is good to belong to a group
and reasons why it is good to have friends. Create class charts with
prompt questions like: What do good friends think, say and do?
What do cooperative group members think, say and do? These can
be started early and built up throughout the Investigating stage.
Assessment task
On the sheets in the Student Workbook, students draw and write
about their personal responses to friendship and working in groups.
Unit 1—Working and playing together 31
Personalising
Overview
Acting on the learning
Students apply understandings about working and
playing together in the classroom context.
The following are actions that may arise from the
unit. The actions chosen should be in consultation
with the students and as much as possible take
their direction from the Investigating stage.
Reflection activity
Discoveries and Wonderings
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Refer back to the goals students set during the
Building stage on the Thinking and Reflecting
Task sheet. Introduce the Reflection Cards on
page 35. Model using the cards to discuss how the
students went with their goals as a whole group.
Students choose a card and complete the sentence.
Students then practise this in a small group or in
pairs. Individually they then complete Reflection
Activity (3) in the Student Workbook.
• Make a class charter for working together
cooperatively.
• Make cards for their friends to tell them what
is special about them.
• Students apply their understandings about
being cooperative to playground situations.
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Reflecting on the learning
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Go back to the Discoveries and Wonderings charts
and see what the students know now and which
questions have been answered. Help students to
track their learning journey by discussing what
they know now that they didn’t know before, and
what they can do now or do better than before.
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Links to literacy
• Oral language: asking questions, giving
explanations, listening, giving opinions
• Reading comprehension tasks: reading stories
about friends or cooperation and finding the
main point, identifying attributes of characters,
inferring
Links to numeracy
• Comparing attributes using Venn diagrams (for
example, of shapes)
32 The Essentials—Lower Primary
• Using reflective language
• Descriptive writing
• Writing personal profiles
Working in groups
sounds like
Working in groups
feels like
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Copyright © Pearson Education Australia 2008 (a division of the Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). This page may be photocopied for classroom use.
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Working in groups
looks like
The Essentials Working & Playing Together—Unit 1
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Y chart
If we were using our ________________________ skills
well, what would we see, hear, be thinking in our
minds, and feel?
What would
we …
Yes
No
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see?
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hear?
Copyright © Pearson Education Australia 2008 (a division of the Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). This page may be photocopied for classroom use.
Cooperative skills at work
feel?
The Essentials Working & Playing Together—Unit 1
be thinking
or saying in
our minds?
I have improved my skills in
I still need to work on
I am a good friend because
I would like to do better at
I tried really hard to
I am a good group
member because
The Essentials Working & Playing Together—Unit 1
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I wish I could
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I am happy about the way I
Copyright © Pearson Education Australia 2008 (a division of the Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). This page may be photocopied for classroom use.
Reflection cards
How good are you at working in groups? What are
you good at and what could you do better? Tick the
box that best describes how often you do these things
when you are in a group either working or playing.
Always Most of Somethe time times
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PERSONAL SKILLS
I am positive.
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I am willing to work with others.
I have a go.
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GROUP SKILLS
I share.
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I stay on task.
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I listen to others.
Hardly
ever
Copyright © Pearson Education Australia 2008 (a division of the Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd). This page may be photocopied for classroom use.
Reflection activity (1)
I accept a role.
I demonstrate care for others.
I consider the viewpoints and feelings of others.
I recognise and accept consequences of actions.
THINKING AND REFLECTING
I reflect on challenges, successes, achievements.
I set short-term goals.
The Essentials Working & Playing Together—Unit 1
RESPONDING TO OTHERS