Third Grade: Self-Talk

For our second lesson, we are continuing our lessons on skills for learning. We added our third skill, using self-talk to our list of skills we can use to help us learn. Our three skills for learning we have discussed are:

• Focus Attention
• Listen
• Use Self-Talk

We started out our lesson with a brain-builder called "Who's Talking?," where students had to close their eyes and listen to hear what student I had selected to read from a book. Once students could hear what direction the voice was coming  from, they had to keep their eyes closed and point in that direction. When they believed that had determined who was speaking, they raised their hands (with eyes closed) and I called on them and allowed them to guess. After a couple of rounds in silence, I did the last round with several distractions that made it harder for students to focus attention and determine who was talking.

To be successful in this activity, students had to follow the listening rules we had already learned. They had to be able to focus on the speaker and listen carefully to determine whose voice they were hearing. Some students may have used self-talk to help them keep from getting distracted.

For the rest of our lesson, we discussed a photo of a student named Omar. Omar was working on a book report, but there were so many distractions in his classroom he was unable to focus on his work. Students raised their hands and named the distractions they could see in the photo. We also talked about the distractions I made during the game, and how this made them feel. Many students felt frustrated by the distractions, and we agreed that Omar probably felt the same way. Therefore, since the students had been through a similar situation as Omar, they could probably understand how he was feeling.

Students used Think, Turn, Tell to share with their partners what they had done to keep from getting distracted in the game. Some students had used self-talk without even realizing it! We define self-talk as saying words to ourselves inside our heads that help us to stay focused and complete our work. However, there are different kinds of self-talk: negative self-talk and positive self-talk. We talked about the importance of using positive self-talk to help us stay focused, and why we shouldn't use negative self-talk.

Next, partners used Think, Turn, Tell to brainstorm what self-talk messages Omar could use to allow himself to focus on his book report. Students came up with several ideas he could use. Finally, we ended the lesson by talking about when and where we could use self-talk at school.