The Golden Rule with Van Gogh

One February morning as I was teaching my First Grade class about Rosa Parks, a little girl raised her hand to announce that,"This is crazy!" to which a normally very quiet (in academic settings) boy responded very matter of factly with, "Their moms did NOT teach them the Golden Rule."  

This was the first time I had really focused in on the importance of such a simple rule. I had always taught students about Respecting themselves, others and the environment. But this one rule (The Golden Rule) encompasses it all! 

"Treat others the way you want to be treated". How seemingly easy!  Watching the news each evening, you can see how people really struggle with this rule. If we can just focus in on this rule with our young eager learners, maybe when we are all older the news will not seem to be so dreary! Too optimistic? Perhaps. Can't hurt to try. :)

                        On to the activity! 

A good friend of mine introduced me to this fantastic book about Vincent Van Gogh, "Camille and the Sunflowers" by Laurence Anholt (this author has written many different picture books about artists and they are fabulous!). My friend has always read this book to her class while teaching them about the great artist and focused the kids in on how Van Gogh is treated poorly (bullied) by those around him. A few years ago I needed to figure out how to tie in this important lesson about "treating others the way you want to be treated" and Van Gogh sunflowers. 

I got it! The sunflowers represent the Golden Rule! Sunflowers are golden! Making a class mural of sunflowers surrounding the writing of what the Golden Rule says, and putting the mural up in the school, is a great way to get that positive message out there. All the while, you are teaching the class about a famous artist, his artwork, and tackling various Common Core Standards. 
Click to find Van Gogh Lesson!

                          Home Connection At home, I think about this rule a lot. As Penelope is growing up, she is meeting many different people and having many new experiences. I always knew she would find herself face to face with a child who hits, or a child who says mean things, but knowing these things happen does not make it any easier to swallow when it actually does. 

Even Cooper got into it! 

So, we started talking about this magical Golden Rule. Teaching Penelope the importance of treating others the way she would like to be treated is hard. I'm not going to pretend that it is easy to teach this concept, especially to a three year old! However, as I have learned, it is often the hardest things to teach that are the most important to keep working on. 

We talk about it a lot. And by we, I don't mean I just talk at her. We discuss what it means. We talk about moments she has had with friends and how it fits into this rule, be it good or bad. We even talked about it as she was swinging on the swing today and hit the tree with her foot. "Would you like someone to kick you and laugh? No? Then should you kick the tree and laugh?" This spurred a fabulous apology to the tree (I did not ask her to do this) and a very interesting conversation about how trees feel and how they talk and what they might say. 

With all of this in mind, I took Penelope to the store to buy some sunflowers. In the morning, during patch time, Cooper takes his nap. This gives us almost 2 hours of time to play or explore or create together, just us girls. 

Here we go...

We read the book about Van Gogh. Looking at the sunflowers and enjoying the story. I didn't go too deep with this, she is only 3! We did, however, talk about how a sunflower is a great flower for the Golden Rule, because it is golden. 

We then took out the paint colors she saw in the flowers. On a big poster board, I showed her how I would paint a sunflower. I made a big brown circle and then painted yellow petals and had her paint my green stem. 

Now it was her turn. I made the circle for her and she painted it in. She painted great yellow petals and even counted as she went. She then finished with her green stem. "Ok, Penelope, lets make a whole garden of these golden flowers!" Hmm...
***This is the beauty of this rule. I am teaching my loving, caring, smart,strong willed, free spirit about a rule that states to treat others the way you want to be treated. How could I then tell her that she can't paint her special garden the way she wanted to? 
"Mama, I'm making a Kandinsky Garden". (Kandinsky lesson to come!)

Now on the wall of our playroom we have a Golden Rule Garden that reminds us of this special rule. Just like the rule, our Kandinsky/Van Gogh inspired garden is quite magical!