by Tanja Rykovska

From October to December 2009, I ran Ready Set Happy workshops in Grade 2 at a primary school in Melbourne. I tried the activities with my daughters (5, 7 and 12 years old back in that time) and was very excited to share them with other children as a parent helping in the classroom.

The workshops were a part of Grade 2 Values project. There were two groups I worked with, each consisting of seven students. Most of them spoke English as second language and had some literacy issues. That determined my focus on the ideas of the Guidelines as well as on literacy.

The children were familiar with the idea of values and we applied this term to the guidelines. We covered five guidelines – kindness, patience, honesty, respect and responsibility. At the end of the year we organised a celebration for the whole class. The children shared what they learned.

During the celebration we did activities that represented the values we talked about. We made patience bracelets (we used very small beads to train our patience). We played the pick-up-sticks game to realise our interconnectedness. We made The Golden Rule bookmarks as Christmas presents. Some students cared for the classmates, making and providing us with delicious sandwiches.

According to a Grade 2 teacher it was a successful celebration which indicated a successful run of the previous sessions.

“I show kindness when I make coffee for my mum,” says one of the students.

“It was difficult to pick a stick without moving the others. That is how we are connected,” shared her experience a girl.

“We show respect when we wait patiently in the queue,” was the explanation of one of the students and the class agreed.

The most beneficial outcome was the chance for the children to reflect on the relationships and interaction with other people.

I have lessons plans to share. I have based them on materials and ideas from the Ready Set Happy kit by Denise Flora and I would like to express my deep gratitude to the author and other people who made it available to the broader international community.