In our classroom last week we were busy learning about our names and our character trait “acceptance. We read “Chrysanthemum” by Kevin Henkes to launch a discussion on both of these topics.

This classic is a wonderful way to celebrate meeting new friends and learn about accepting others’ differences. Chrysanthemum is full of so many wonderful learning opportunities!

Synopsis: Chrysanthemum thinks her name is absolutely perfect. That is until she goes to her fist day of school and the other girls tease her about her long name. “It scarcely fits onto your nametag.” “She’s named after a flower.” “Let’s smell her.” Poor Chrysanthemum. Will she ever love her name again?

Acceptance

We celebrated our character trait “acceptance” by reading Chrysanthemum and talking about how we are all unique.

• Think before you speak.  Am I saying kind words?
• Let’s look at each other. Do we all look the same? We discussed physical differences.
•  How else are we different? We also discussed other ways that we are different. Differences aren’t always physical. We even think differently.
• We talked about how we are all unique but the most important thing is that we are all human!

Practicing our Names

We also used this story to talk about names and extend our name practice by building name flowers. You can find this flower name craft by Once Upon the ABCs by clicking here.

We are going to continue practicing names with these fabulous name activities found at Teaching Heart Blog.

And because our little ones love everything to do with their names in the beginning of the year, we added this fun little Chrysanthemum name slider to the mix of name activities.

Math & Numbers

In our small group math centers, we practice number recognition and one-to-one correspondence with these cute flower puzzles by Once Upon the ABCs.

I love them because they are super low prep. Simply print, laminate, and cut them apart.

To find this Flower Power number puzzle you can click here.

Chrysanthemum Read Aloud 

Check out this Chrysanthemum read aloud at Story Time at Awnie’s House.

Looking for other amazing literature activities to do with your kiddo? Check out some of my other posts.