First Grade: Following Directions

For our third lesson, we dove deeper into our learning skills to discuss following directions and how it helps us learn. We began our lesson with a round of My Turn, Your Turn with Snail and Puppy. In this activity, students were supposed to follow Snail's directions and ignore Puppy's. This lesson required students to focus attention on who was speaking, listen to the directions they hear, and remember what was said to be successful.

After the Brain Builder, we reviewed what we had learned the week before with our attentoscopes. We talked about what they are, how we use them, and why they are important. We also talked about how using our attentoscopes helped us in My Turn, Your Turn. Next, we listened to the "Be a Learner" song, paying close attention to the words and listening for specific phrases: focus, attention, listen, and use eyes and ears and brain. There were specific motions we did any time we heard those phrases.

• Focus/Attention - make attentoscope
• Listen - cup ear
• Use eyes and ears and brain - point to eyes, ears, brain

For the remainder of the lesson we focused on a picture of a student named Brianna who was in class.  Brianna had heard the teacher begin giving instructions, but didn't wait until the teacher had finished giving directions before digging around in her desk to get out the supplies she thought she needed. Once she looked up, she realized she didn't know what the other students were working on or what she was supposed to be doing. We talked about how Brianna felt (sad, confused, angry at herself, nervous), and if we had ever not known what to do because we weren't listening to the directions or focusing on the teacher.

We talked about what Brianna could do to solve her problem, and we decided there were two good options: to ask a friend for help or to ask the teacher for help. We also discussed how we should ask the teacher for help (quietly raising our hands and waiting until she had called on us). When Brianna asks for help she makes sure she is focused on the teacher by putting on her attentoscope and she listens to what the teacher is saying. When she is finished, the teacher asks Brianna to repeat what she told her, which helps Brianna remember what she is supposed to do.

Finally, we talked about how listening involves more than just hearing sounds. It involves hearing the words, thinking about the words, and then remembering what was said. We can repeat what the teacher says to help us remember what to do and follow the directions.