It’s February. The beginning of the slow downhill slope to the end of the school year. However, my kids are anything but slow-moving these days. Lately they’ve been being little turkeys – constantly “forgetting” the rules, interrupting one another, and speaking not-so-kindly to their friends.
And it’s not just my pragmatic kids, y’all. Mid-year they are all a little too comfortable in their routines and like to push boundaries. Needless to say, their behavior was worth addressing. Soooo, we had a little lesson in MANNERS and POLITENESS. I wanted to focus on teaching positive behaviors instead of harping on what not to do.
I picked 3 ways to be polite and we practiced using them our speech room. Here are a few ways we targeted these skills.
1. Polite Words
First, we talked about specific words that we use to be polite. The ones we focused on were: please, thank you, excuse me, and I’m sorry. I hung some visuals and discussed each word and how to use them. We then role-played a few scenarios when it would be important to use these words.
2. Polite Actions
Next, we talked about how acting polite means thinking about what would make others happy and putting their needs before our own. Some polite behaviors we targeted were: helping out, respecting personal space, and letting others go first. I told my little friends that sometimes it’s harder to act polite because it means not being selfish. I told them to push the buttons in their brains that tell them to act the right way. We discussed and role-played these skills as well.
3. Polite Conversation Skills
Lastly, it was the inevitable conversational rules talk. I gave them 4 talking rules that they needed to use during our conversations and put them on a poster. It is now visibly displayed for all to see. We practice this one the most! Check out the poster with the 4 rules I targeted:
You can grab this poster along with the rest of the visuals in my TPT store for FREE! Do you promote politeness in your speech room as well? How has it worked for you?
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