Fourth-grade students at Smithtown Elementary School participated in an important lesson from the English Language Arts Academy. Through reading, The Hundred Dresses, the students learned the importance of treating all others with respect, kindness and to thwart bullying.
The Hundred Dresses, is a book by Eleanor Estes, about a young girl who lacks the courage to stand up to her friends, who have teased a shy classmate. Wanda, the shy classmate, stops coming to school. Despite a bad feeling, Maddie decides to focus on the school’s drawing contest. The students enter a classroom filled with 100 of Wanda’s drawings, of beautiful dresses, on the day of the contest with a note from her father. Maddie and Peggy attempt to apologize, when they learn that Wanda is moving to a city where her name won’t elicit cruelty and teasing. They quickly learn that they were too late to make amends.
After reading “The Hundred Dresses,” teachers handed out tubes of toothpaste to the students, to illustrate the book’s lessons. The students enjoyed the exercise of squeezing and churning toothpaste out of the tube, to discover it was next to impossible to put the toothpaste back. The lesson was meant to show how easy it is to speak harmful words and how hard it is to take them back.
Editor’s Note: it is never too early to teach your children the importance of tolerance, unbiased behavior and the right way to prevent bullying at school. Using fun activities like the tube of toothpaste to help your child understand the literal effects of bullying can help your child absorb the lesson.
Fun Anti Bullying Activity to do with your Kids: Glitter is like Gossip
- Give one child a handful of glitter
- Tell them they must pass out the glitter it to everyone else in the room.
- They can not have any glitter left. They can’t wash the glitter off their hands or leave any on the ground.
The message: Gossip spreads quickly through a room. Once it’s out, it’s impossible to get rid of every last rumor.