Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan: My Decisions: Good or Bad

Length of sessions:

Four 30 minute sessions
One 40 minute session

Introduction Activity (30 minute session)
Read Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban. Ask the students, what did the story mean to you? How does it relate to their lives? Discuss: What food choices did Frances' mother give her? Did Frances' mother respect her decision? What was the consequence of her decision? When did Frances have a hard time deciding between the two choices? When she felt a conflict, what emotion did she express? Did Frances make a final decision? When is it appropriate to change a previous decision? Teacher records on butcher paper.

Activity 1(30 minute session)
In teams, carefully remove mealworms and place on a piece of paper with food. Have the students observe mealworms and record observations in their journals. Return mealworms to their containers of bran flakes and observe their behavior. Do you think they remain on top? Where do they go? How long does it take? Discuss: Why do you think they go under the flakes? Do you think they want more food or to hide? Why do you think they hide? If we give them a choice, do you think they will go into the dark or stay in the light? Have the students brainstorm as a group: What can we do to find out the answers to your questions? Listen to the students' questions and have the teams choose one question that they want to find out the answer to.

Activity 2(40 minute session)
Review the decisions and consequences from the story discussion in the Introduction. Discuss: If we create an empty container with dark and light places, predict what you think the mealworm will do on the light side? On the dark side? Carefully place mealworms in the light half of the empty containers and observe. Allow 5 minutes for each trial and time to record observations in their journals. Have the students report to their teams and present their findings to the class. If they went to the dark side, why do you think they went to the dark side? Does the mealworm do the same thing as it did in Activity 1? Make a bar graph for the class representing what the mealworms did in the containers using either the page of mealworm pictures provided or mealworms cut out by the students. Use additional time to do other experiments or research that came out of Activity 1. Lead a discussion addressing the fact that mealworms react to stimuli and are not making decisions. People react to stimuli, but also can stop and think to make choices and decisions that consider the consequences of an action.

Activity 3(30 minute session)
Read The Butterfly Hunt by Yoshi. Discuss the decisions made by the boy. Did the boy stop and think about his actions and their consequences? Tie into students' lives about thinking before they act. Can you think of a time you did something without thinking about your actions? Thinking back now, what would you do next time? What works best for us -- to react or to stop and think about the consequences of our actions? Are there times when reacting is good? Are there times when it is good to stop and think? Teacher records on butcher paper.

Closure Activity(30 minute session)
Ask the students to review the decisions and solutions made by their classmates from the last group discussion. In teams, have the students choose a situation where one of them had to make a difficult decision or choice or solve a problem. Ask the students to draw a picture about what happened. How did you solve the problem? When you made the decision what did you do? Share drawings with the class.

Lesson Intro Set-up Lesson Plans Additions
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