TEAMWORK paper quilt
Have you heard of Family Dinner Book Club? Growing Book By Book and two other bloggers have been putting it together for the past couple of years (you can find more information about it HERE). If you follow the Vlinder Facebook page, you may have seen me share their posts every now and then. Last year, the monthly book club selections took participants all around the world. Such a great opportunity to encourage speech and language development, increase world knowledge, and develop critical thinking skills. When I saw that the 2018 line-up was all about character strengths, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my therapy somehow. It’s been a process to figure out how, but so far I am thrilled with the results and am excited for the potential the rest of the year holds.
January’s focus character strength was TEAMWORK.
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. ~ Michael Jordan
Knowing how to work as part of a team is such an important life skill. And one that is critical to social functioning. We are born into our first team - our family. Other teams will follow - being part of a class, participating in sports and/or clubs, in our jobs, etc. If they had a concept of what 'teamwork' means, my clients had a very narrow idea: teamwork = sports. We used that as a jumping off point, but focused heavily on other ways in which we can exhibit teamwork.
In therapy sessions throughout January, we:
- Read the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni and completed related activities about the story
- Read the book Tractor Mac Teamwork by Billy Steers and discussed
- Read Teamwork Isn’t My Thing, and I Don’t Like to Share! by Julia Cook and discussed
- Watched this short YouTube video (a sequence of three brief animation advertisments giving great visual examples of teamwork): The Power of Union is Strength
- Completed a group project in which each child contributed a few decorated squares of paper that were incorporated into a big paper quilt (image above)
- And finally, completed a worksheet to summarize what we had learned about teamwork
Also, as opportunities arose, I highlighted (or asked about) when a child was part of a team/contributed to teamwork.
None of us is as smart as all of us. ~ Ken Blanchard
With my high school clients, every week we read and discussed quotes on teamwork, followed by them writing a short statement about what the quote means to them / how they can apply the meaning to their lives.
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. ~ Henry Ford
Head on over to this blog post on Growing Book By Book for free materials if you would like to highlight the concept of teamwork at home. There is a list of suggested books, discussion questions, and links to suggested activities and accompanying dinner menu for the January Family Dinner Book Club on Teamwork. Cooperative games, such as those by Peaceable Kingdom, are another fun way to work on teamwork in short, structured ways.
For more pictures of what we did in therapy, check out the TEAMWORK album on the Vlinder Facebook page.
Related Resources
Working Together Interactive PowerPoint by Eve Coates (I have not used this as I didn't find it until after we had moved on to the February focus word, but I used a few other of her interactive powerpoints throughout February and they were really helpful)
Swimmy by Leo Lionni from Comprehension Connection on TPT
Character Education: Cooperation with Swimmy story book from Stuart Skopit on TPT
Our February focus word was PERSISTENCE - I hope to get a blog post up soon about what we did in therapy last month! Stay tuned...
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