Practice perseverance | Try, Try Again! | K-2

Instructions

Step 1: Activate personal connection to ‘perseverance’

In order to create a personal connection to the idea of perseverance, you will challenge your students to a difficult by attainable task. Some examples of these tasks could be:

• to build the tallest tower using cups or other similar items
• finish a puzzle without the guiding picture
• unwrap a present with many, many layers of wrapping paper

While your students are trying to achieve these goals, they may get frustrated. Encourage them to keep going until they can achieve their goal.

Step 2: Identify their acts of perseverance

Once most, if not all, of your students or groups have accomplished their goals ask the students to come back as a group to have a discussion. Have students identify how they were feeling during the activity. How did you feel? What did you do? What happened when…your tower fell, you couldn’t find the right puzzle piece, you kept unwrapping the paper to find another layer, etc? Did you give up?

Identify a few stories of kids that wanted to give up, but did not. Tell them that they had perseverance.

Step 3: Define perseverance

Define perseverance: never giving up, to try and try again!

Let students know that there are times to when things will be hard, but it is important not to give up! You have to persevere, and keep trying and trying again.

Step 4: Have students brainstorm and create stories or scenarios where kids could use perseverance

Split students in to groups of 2 or 3. Have students discuss times that either they or other kids have used perseverance and create images or stories to describe those scenarios (like learning to ride a bike, finishing a puzzle, writing a story, etc.). Students could add their images to a shared document, slide show or jamboard.

Step 5: Share their different stories and/or images

Share the shared document or presentation and have students explain how their story or scenario shows evidence of perseverance…try and try again attitudes.