Teacher, Teacher!

Self-regulation/social awareness

Genres of Literature

•  Morning Meeting: If you use your morning meeting to build classroom community, this mini graphic about tattling is a great discussion prompt.
• Whole Group Activity: Once you’ve read and discussed the story together, have children act out the different parts.

• From the Storyworks archive: “Sticky Situation: My Way,” May/ June 2023; “Sticky Situation: When Is It My Turn?,” October/ November 2022
• Suggested books: A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue by Julia Cook; Miles McHale, Tattletale by Christianne Jones

Video: What's In a Comic? (7 minutes)

• Explore how comics use pictures, thoughts, and dialogue to show what’s happening in the story

• Ask children what tattling is. (It is telling on someone to get them in trouble.) Ask them to remember a time they tattled or someone tattled on them. How did it make them feel? Then ask how tattling is different from reporting. (Tattling gets someone in trouble, but reporting can help someone who is in trouble.) How are those two actions different?
• Read the article aloud, giving children time to discuss what each picture tells them.
• Discuss the Talk It Out questions. Close out the discussion by asking children to share examples from their own lives as they make connections to how the characters are feeling.

• Skills: Self-regulation/problem solving (15 minutes)

Skill: Problem solving/social awareness (15 minutes)

Create a T-Chart, labeling one side “tattling” and the other side “reporting.” As a class, sort the following sentences to determine which is characteristic of tattling or reporting:

• You want to get someone in trouble.
• You need help from an adult to solve the problem.
• Someone is hurt or in real trouble.
• You can solve the problem on your own.
• You can ignore the problem.