Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Meet Rude Rodney

This week we are learning all about Nutrition, Manners, and Exercise. I have a friend that always visits us during our friendship or manners units (usually around Valentines day). His name is Rude Rodney and he has NO IDEA how to use manners. The kids always find him hilarious because, well, he's RUDE! It's a great teachable time when the kids become the teachers and they think it's great that they are "smarter" than him. Also, kids just LOVE puppets!!
Each day I have Rodney come out of a different container - first he comes out of an empty tissue box (or something similar that he'll fit in) and he sneezes and coughes all over the kids (It's fun to have a spray bottle to make it more realistic). We sing this song and the children TEACH him the correct way to sneeze and cough (in your elbow or tissue). I bring him out of a gift box on another day and we talk about saying "please" and "thank you". Another day he keeps interrupting the teacher while I'm reading a story - the kids really crack up and they really start to figure out how important it is to say excuse me and raise our hands in class. He also comes driving in on a big truck and we talk about sharing our toys.
The most important idea of this whole thing is to EXAGGERATE his rudeness and make it your own. It is such a fun thing to teach and enjoy with the kids!!
Happy Manner Making!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have had a similar experience: with the H1N1 scare this year and all the vaccine hoopla I went a bit germaphobe and googled how to teach kids about germs at the start of the school year. Found a new program called Germ Smarts for kids and got it for home and for our child’s preschool. It was a bit pricey but has probably saved us hundreds as the kids have not been bringing home every germ on the planet from preschool and we are no longer playing the “pass the germ” game around the house! Simple program but huge difference in staying healthy for everyone, and the kids love it!

Deborah Stewart said...

What a great idea - puppets are so much fun to teach these types of concepts!

Unknown said...

I LOVE the idea of Rude Rodney! I can't wait for him to visit my class one day soon! :)