Originally published on 8/26/21
With the beginning of a new school year, students are busy forming new friendships within their classes. Mrs. Diama Conn, second grade English Language Arts teacher at Hasse Elementary, came up with a plan to focus on how important it is to be kind to everyone.
Teaching both her own and Mrs. Ashley Noak’s class, she began the lesson by reading “Yoko” to the students. The story highlights how Yoko is culturally different from her classmates. The character takes sushi for lunch and is ridiculed for her lunch choice. One of her classmates decides to try the sushi and ends up falling in love with it! Mrs. Conn built from the story and talked about how everyone comes from different backgrounds, but deep down inside we are the same and have the same feelings.
“We talked about how important it is to be kind to each other and in order to have a successful year we had to promise to keep certain friendship guidelines,” Mrs. Conn shared.
The students were tasked with creating their own “friendship sushi.” Several ingredients were used and each item shared a special meaning of how a positive friendship often starts with their own actions. “Each piece of the friendship sushi had a special meaning and the students were eager to build their own,” says Mrs. Conn.
The base, a rice crispy treat, represents the student and how a positive friendship starts with them. Next, marshmallow spread was used to represent how things might get “sticky” but as long as they stick with it and work together they can accomplish anything! Then they rolled the sushi in Fruity Pebbles to show how we are all different, but should be treated the same. A Swedish fish was added to the mix which represented how your friends will support you even when you feel like a fish out of water. The final step was having students wrap their treats in a Fruit by the Foot to show how a friendship can bring everything together.
“I begin each year with this lesson because teaching the importance of having great friendships and treating others the way you want to be treated speaks volumes in a class where students come from a variety of backgrounds.” Mrs. Conn shared. “Teaching them to cheer each other on and be there for each other is so important.”
The biggest takeaway for the students is the lesson itself, even though some would say it's the yummy food they get to enjoy! Second grader Maci shared, “It was fun and so messy!”