Each year the National Hurricane Center publishes a pre-approved list of names for the season. These names can be a jumping off point for teaching students social skills.
Teachers and parents who work with children who have special needs must be proactive and teach children the proper social cues and responses. Here is one unique way to do that.
Use the current hurricane season to introduce students to what a hurricane is. Show pictures, video clips and read about how a hurricane forms and how it can be so devastating to an area that it hits. Then have students brainstorm emotions and character traits that would accurately describe a hurricane.
Have each hurricane name printed on an index card and pass them out to the students. Here is the list of the 2009 hurricane names:
• Ana
• Bill
• Claudette
• Danny
• Erika
• Fred
• Grace
• Henri
• Ida
• Joaquin
• Kate
• Larry
• Mindy
• Nicholas
• Odette
• Peter
• Rose
• Sam
• Teresa
• Victor
• Wanda
Have each child become a hurricane in turn, acting out the emotions and character traits listed on the board. After the child/hurricane does something, the teacher should call out “freeze!” and everyone has to stop and discuss an appropriate way to handle the situation.
A good way to conclude the lesson is to have a class discussion on how the child who was being the hurricane should have acted/reacted to situations that would have been more appropriate.
This is a great lesson to tie into science class as they learn about hurricanes. They can also work on their writing skills as an excellent follow up assignment could be a journal entry about a situation in which they reacted poorly and how they should have reacted differently.
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