Character Planning

Exploring Character

Bromley 2018 theme: My Body and Me

School themes: My Body and Me

Key Competency: Managing Self

Curriculum links: Curriculum Links: Health and PE Curriculum level 3 Personal identity Describe how their own feelings, beliefs, and actions, and those of other people, contribute to their personal sense of self-worth. Personal growth and development Identify factors that affect personal, physical, social, and emotional growth and develop skills to manage changes.

Intro / Provocation

Kindness (fully teacher guided) What are some examples of showing kindness toward others? How have you felt when you did something kind to someone? How have you felt when other people are kind to you? View Kindness Boomerang music video. Complete pass on the kindness activity in groups. Discuss the above Character Strengths (Partly teacher guided) What is character? What are character strengths? (brainstorm) & feedback to class. What do we know? Watch the marshmallow test and massive slide stunt? What qualities do these people have? Watch the video on character. What does this mean? What character strengths can you relate to? What are we good at? Children identify what qualities/ strengths they have. How do these make you feel?

Beginning to break down the strength(s) .

Kindness Shared books with a kindness theme We talked about the different possible ways to view the concept / idea of manaakitanga. We explored a number of  Whakataukī throughout the day based on kindness.       Manaakitanga Kindness assembly Character Strengths Looking at the different character strengths that we can have Identifying our five signature  strengths and explore two in detail Character Strength Definitions

Recognising and developing our strengths

Kindness Somebody loves you Mr Hutch- Shared story Children kept a kindness diary. How many acts of kindness could I give or recognise over a day? We also have a recognised kindness whiteboard on display in class.        Kindness Diaries Once a week at the end of the day children are sent to places like the office and other classrooms to perform an act of kindness. We have had groups of children also assist the caretaker cleaning up outside. Character Strengths Exploring ways to “flex our strengths” View a couple of Music videos with a narrative story. Identify the strengths shown in these stories. Then write a narrative recount based on them. Writing What is Hauora and how does this relate to our strengths? Identify definitions of all the key concepts and principles -taha tinana, taha hinengaro, taha whanau, and taha wairua.Haoura Children worked in groups reading a number of different Whakataukī and brainstorm their understanding and interpretation of them. We came back as a class to discuss and compare our findings.  We also discussed why Whakataukī are motivational and how these could be used to help remind and direct us towards a desired outcome.

Create / Evaluate / Share

Kindness Share kindness diaries Decide on a kindness goal to help ‘flex the muscle’  Sample of flexing a strength Share at school open evening Take part in a whole school MAD day (make a difference day)         MAD Day Notice Character Strengths Create a slideshow on your character strengths How did you do? What do you need to work on?  (Self-management) Find a Whakataukī that best describes one of your strengths or a broad translation of a  strength in te reo Māori. Relate and make connections with Hauora Share slide shows as a class and with parents at our school open evening Here is a sample of a child's work "When I am older I would like to be...."  Decide on a dream job  and identify the reasons for this. Decide on what character strengths you will need to help  achieve this dream. Then identify the skills you will need to achieve this. Finally write 3 paragraphs including all this information. Writing Plan

Our Guided Character Inquiry

We have been looking into what character is and all the character strengths we could possibly have. Using this knowledge and character strength definitions, we had to identify what we thought are our five signature strengths. We discussed with peers what these strengths were and then identified the two strengths we used the most. These two strengths have been used for our guided learning inquiry. 

After identifying two of our character strengths we explored what this means for us. 

Our guided inquiry followed this structure:

- Why are my strengths important for me? 

- How can I 'flex' these muscles at school and home? 

- How will I help others to develop their strengths?

- Identify someone well known that has at least one of my strengths? 

- Find a whakataukī that best describes one of my strengths or find a broad translation of a  strength in te reo māori. 

- How did I use and develop my self management skills during my inquiry?

Visit our individual blogs to see our personal guided inquiries!

Below are some examples of the guided inquiry.

What is hauora?

We have started to explore what hauora is and the different dimensions of it. Hauora is the te reo māori word for well-being. 

We have watched some short clips and had discussions around what we think hauora is. There are four main parts to hauora:

Taha tinana - Physical well-being

Taha hinengaro - Mental well-being

Taha whanau - Social well-being

Taha wairua - Spiritual well-being

We looked at our character strengths and how these could relate to each one of the dimensions. 

Manaakitanga

THE CONCEPT OF MANAAKITANGA

Love towards us, love going out from us

We talked about the different possible ways to view the concept / idea of manaakitanga:

- making someone feel at home

- being a responsible host

- showing kindness

- hospitality

- caring for the environment

- treating people with respect

- nurturing relationships

- caring for others

- reciprocity of kindness, respect and humanity


We read a variety of Whakataukī throughout the day based on kindness.