The Implementation of Character Education and Children’s Literature to Teach Bullying Characteristics and Prevention Strategies to Preschool Children: An Action Research Project

Abstract

Bullying behaviors among young children are taking place in preschool classrooms and child-development centers. The author makes a case, based on bullying themes in children’s literature and both qualitative and quantitative data collection with young children, for the use of children’s picture books to teach character as bullying prevention to 4–6 year old children. Through the reading of picture books and character education activities with a bullying theme preschool children develop a better understanding of bullying characteristics and strategies for dealing with bullying behaviors. Included are the results from questionnaires and interviews with preschool children and an annotated bibliography of children’s picture books and activities useful in the instruction and prevention of bullying behaviors.

Appendices

Appendix 1:

Appendix 2: Annotated Bibliography of Top Twenty Children’s Picture Books with a Bullying Theme

Each annotation consists of the following: book citation and age level, book summary and evaluation, and post-reading activity explanation.

Bateman, T. (2004). The Bully Blockers Club. Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman & Company. 4–8.

Faced with a bully at school, Lotty tries suggested strategies for dealing with him: ignoring, befriending, and telling the teacher. When none of these work, several children at school form a club to stand up to the bully. This book is an excellent guide for explaining several positive strategies for dealing with a bully. Form a “Bully Blockers Club” like the one in the book. Make pins or stickers with “BBC” written/typed on them for students to wear. Practice how and when to say the line, “Hey, what are you doing?” and discuss situations when using the line would be appropriate or inappropriate.

Berenstain, S. & J. (1995). The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Teasing. New York, NY: Random House. 4–7.

Brother thinks it is fun to tease until someone begins to torment him. He ends up taking up for another child who is being teased and learns that teasing can cause serious problems. This book is good for teaching children that teasing is hurtful and harmful. Create paper Berenstain Bear faces and attach them to craft sticks. Have children in pairs use their stick puppets to make teasing statements to one another. Discuss why these statements can be hurtful. After the discussion, have the same pairs make kind statements to one another with their puppets.

Bottner, B. (1997). Bootsie Barker Bites. New York, NY: The Putnam & Grosset Group. 4–6.

The narrator of the story tells about her mother’s friend whose daughter, Bootsie, terrorizes her when she comes over for a visit. The narrator eventually comes up with a solution for how to handle Bootsie the bully. This story helps children understand characteristics of a bully. Ask children to tell how they would feel if they had to deal with a character such as Bootsie. Have a list of emotions (angry, scared, sad, confused, worried, lonely) displayed. Have children act out each emotion. Children can also act out different endings to the story.

Carlson, N. (1983). Loudmouth George and the Sixth-Grade Bully. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books. 4–8.

Two friends, George and Harriet, make some bad tasting food for a bully who steals George’s lunch. This book describes a humorous way to deal with a bully. Re-read the two sentences, “Saturday morning George biked over to Harriet’s. He shook all the way there.” Ask children to shout out words or phrases that describe how they might feel or act if a bully was bothering them. List all of their suggestions for everyone to see. Give all children cut-out pictures of spiders, snakes or other items that might cause fear in people. Have the children write their word or phrase on the cut-out. After everyone has written their word tell them to crumple their paper and throw it in the air symbolizing their freeing themselves of their fear. Have children give alternative strategies for dealing with a bully who steals food.

Caseley, J. (2001). Bully. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. 4–7.

Mickey is bullied by Jack on the playground, but learns from his mother that Jack is having a difficult time at home and may need a friend. Mickey is kind to Jack and they become friends. This book helps children understand that sometimes when people are mean it is because of troubles they have in their lives and that if you are kind to them it could possibly help. Have children sit in a circle on the playground with one child holding a ball. Have each child make a statement of something kind they might say or do to a child who is unkind to others. After each statement bounce the ball to someone else in the circle.

Chapman, C. (1981). Herbie’s Troubles. New York, NY: E. P. Dutton Publishing Company. 4–7.

Herbie doesn’t want to go to school because he is being bullied. After trying several strategies to deal with the bully, Herbie finds that ignoring the bully works best. This is another book filled with various strategies to deal with a bully, helpful in discussions with young children. This book won the 1985 “California Young Reader Medal,” an award elected by children. Give children pre-cut leaves about the size of your hand to write a one word strategy for ignoring a bully. Create a bulletin board with a large tree and the leaf cut-outs as well as scenes from the book.

Cole, J. (1989). Bully Trouble. New York, NY: Random House. 4–8.

Two friends are bullied by an older boy who takes their snacks. The boys find a humorous solution to their troubles which causes the bully to leave them alone. This is a humorous book to introduce children to the topic of bullying and to show that friends should always support one another. Have the class write a recipe that would not be tasty. Children will have fun giving suggestions for the yucky ingredients. Share a delicious cookie recipe but add a couple of bad ingredients. Ask children to point out the bad and good ingredients of the recipe. Compare to people. Have children give alternative endings to the book.

Cushman, D. (1990). Camp Big Paw. New York, NY: Harper & Row. 4–8.

A bully camper (Nigel Snootbutter) makes a new camper (Cyril the cat) feel bad and sabotages all of his contest entries on field day. Finally, Cyril wins a game and stands up to the bully with brave words. This is an excellent book for helping children learn to be brave and use strong words when someone is constantly picking on them. Have children role-play standing up to a bully. Pairs take turns playing the part of the bully while the other plays the victim.

Freschet, B. (1986). Furlie Cat. New York, NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books. 4–7.

A cat terrorizes a neighborhood until he himself is terrorized by a bear. This book teaches children about overcoming their fears and treating others with kindness and respect. Create a piece of artwork with a scene from the book by cutting out construction paper shapes and gluing them to a piece of cardstock. This is an excellent way to integrate arts, math, and literacy skills with social skills related to bullying, fear and dealing with these types of situations.

Henkes, K. (1991). Chrysanthemum. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books. 4–8.

A young girl is teased for her name but overcomes it with help from her teacher. This book helps children to see differences and that everyone is unique in their own way. It also helps children see how hurtful teasing can be. Look up meanings for names on a website such as http://www.behindthename.com/. Write something positive from the research about each child on a card and have children decorate it.

Keats, E. J. (1969). Goggles. New York, NY: Puffin Books. 4–10.

Two boys find the best strategy for dealing with older bullies is to run away from them. This story contains smart strategies for handling a situation with older, intimidating children that young people may encounter in a neighborhood situation. Have a discussion about the senses. Have the children focus on one sense at a time. First, have them sniff things that smell good and bad. Second, have them look at happy faces and mean faces. Third, have them listen to statements that are positive and statements that are negative. Fourth, have them feel of soft, nice things and hard or rough things. Last have them taste something good and something not so good. Have a discussion about how the items they sampled using their senses are like people. There can be good and bad, but we want to try to focus on the good and help the bad become good. We also sometimes want to avoid the negative and move in the direction of the positive like the young boys in the book moved away from the older, bad boys because it was the safest strategy in such a situation.

Lester, H. (2002). Hooway for Wodney Wat. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin. 4–8.

Rodney has a speech impediment and is made fun of by another classmate. Eventually, results from his speech impediment rescue the other classmates from the bully. This is a good book to help children see how it feels to be made fun of and teased. Assign each child in the class a “pretend” disability (e.g. verbal, visual or hearing impairment, inability to walk or use one of their hands/arms, etc.). Tell them they are going to take part in an activity for 10 min. Set up games for groups of four. Have them play the games for the 10 min without their disability and again for 10 min with their disability. Later have a discussion asking questions like, “Did anyone tease you?” “Was anyone impatient with you?” “Were you frustrated?”

Lonczak, H. (2007). Mookey the Monkey Gets Over Being Teased. Washington, DC: Magination Press. 4–8.

Mookey gets teased because he is a hairless monkey. He finds strategies for dealing with the taunts: accepting his differences, finding friends who care about him even if he is hairless, asking for help, and ignoring the teasers. This is a good story for promoting self-esteem and teaching strategies for dealing with bullies. Tell the students you are going to time them for 2 min to see how many ideas for dealing with a bully they can say aloud. List the ideas as they are stated where the children can see them. Keep a tally of the number of ideas they listed. Rank order the list students come up with from best strategy for dealing with a bully to worst strategy for dealing with a bully.

Lovell, P. (2001). Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 4–10.

Molly Lou shows off her unique characteristics and how she positively deals with another child who makes fun of her. This story helps children take personal characteristics they see as being negative and turn them into positive qualities. Play a game where the teacher says “Stand tall, student name.” The student whose name is called stands up and tells one personal characteristic that makes them (or a classmate) unique.

Meddaugh, S. (1998). Martha Walks the Dog. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. 4–8.

Martha, the talking dog finds, with the help of a parrot, the best way for dealing with a bully who has just moved into the neighborhood is to praise and be nice to them. This book is an excellent example of the power of praise. Have several old magazines for children to use for this activity. Have the children cut out happy, smiling, friendly, helpful faces from magazines. Make a class collage of friendly faces. Have children practice praising one another. An alternative would be to have two class collages, one of friendly faces and one of faces that resemble a bully or unfriendly faces in general. Discuss how others see us when we wear different faces.

Nickle, J. (1999). The Ant Bully. New York, NY: Scholastic. 4–10.

Lucas is mean to ants but he changes his tune after he is pulled into their hole and sees what it is like to be the victim. Read the book through once. Put children in groups of three or four. Read the book a second time assigning each scene to a group. Give groups 5 min to create “frozen pictures” where they act out a scene without moving or talking. Read through the book a third time stopping at each scene for the groups to share their “frozen pictures.”

O’Neill, A. (2002). The Recess Queen. New York, NY: Scholastic. 4–8.

Mean Jean is the playground bully. None of the other children can use the playground toys unless Mean Jean says it is okay, until a new girl comes to the school and ignores Mean Jean. The new girl befriends Mean Jean and the playground is a happy place once again. This is a good lesson about treating others with kindness and sharing. Read the book through several times having children act out the scenes (bouncing the ball, jumping rope, reciting the jump rope rhymes) as a class. Talk about ways the children could have handled Mean Jean’s bullying behaviors. Play a “Charades” type game where children act out a strategy for dealing with a bully. Children guess the strategy.

O’Neill, A. (2008). The Worst Best Friend. New York, NY: Scholastic. 4–8.

A mean kid comes between two friends, Mike and Conrad, but when he only chooses big kids to be on his team, Mike and Conrad find out what real friendship is all about. This book will help children understand about including others and that true friends will stick by each other no matter what the situation. Make a word that describes a good friend out of alphabet beads and place the beads on yarn to make a bracelet. The children wear the bracelets for the day to remind them of what a friend should be like, or trade the bracelets with another friend.

Penn, A. (2008). Chester Racoon and the Big Bad Bully. Terre Haute, IN: Tanglewood Press. 4–10.

Chester learns that staying with a group and standing up to a bully is a smart strategy. Chester and his friends learn from Chester’s mother that befriending a bully will sometimes help the bully change her or his ways. This is a good story to show that children who are mean can change and become nice and fun to play with. Have children use puppets to create their own plays or stories using words to stand up to a bully or to befriend a bully, and perform for the class.

Rosenberg, L. (1993). Monster Mama. New York, NY: Philomel Books. 4–10.

A boy with an unusual mother stands up to bullies and shows his love for her. This is a beautifully illustrated book that teaches caring, love and how to be brave in a threatening situation involving bullies. Create the Mama character or a scene from the book (i.e. the cave in the back of the house) using clay or play-dough. Create a mural or sidewalk art of a scene from the book.