Self-Management: Teaching Pre-K How to Be Careful With Actions

Mastering the skill of self-management is crucial for personal growth and development, and one of the essential steps is taking control of one's actions. Every action has a consequence, and acting thoughtfully is necessary to turn any situation into a positive one.This lesson is designed to help pre-kindergartners learn self-management, using easy-to-follow teaching techniques that keep them attentive and motivated.

With an illustrative short story titled "Emily’s Bad Day," this lesson introduces the concept of managing actions. The story follows the students’ old friend, Emily, who is having a negative start to her day. However, after learning how to manage her actions, she turns her day into one of the most positive ever!

From this story, the students learn that they can turn a bad day around by learning how to manage their seventh gift—the gift of ‘actions.’ In the first Unit, the class learns that actions are the things that they do with their hands, feet, and legs. This lesson teaches them that they can do so much more—they can choose to do positive actions! It is by managing their actions that can turn their days into a positive one, just like Emily did!

To help them practice and understand the lesson better, the class participates in an activity, learns a clap, and reads their ICU messages from the ICU Doing Something Positive Box. The ICU messages recognize the positive actions that each student in the class makes. They realize that managing their actions by doing something positive makes them feel good about themselves!

Besides preventing negative consequences and turning a negative day around, pre-kindergartners must also learn to manage their actions to develop their character and improve their behavior. Since actions are the foundation of habits and behavior, learning how to manage them prepares pre-kindergartners to be well-rounded individuals.