Elicit non-trivial dialogue from students. Guide students to reflection and analysis of the experience. Encourage students to share their perceptions and beliefs. Summarize and review similarities and differences.

Ask the children what just happened.

Objective: To experience the action of exchange (the root of the meaning of change itself.).

Activity: Children play the Change Game. One child could also do this alone with another person telling her/him what to do.
Ask the children to do the following three things:
1. Curl up small, then stand up tall. (Be sure to clap when they do it.)
2. Sit right here, then go sit over there. (Being shown where here and there is.)
3. Put on this cap, now put it in your lap, and put on this second cap.
(You will need enough caps for each child to be able to take the first one off and put the second one on. It would be great if they could be the kind that would make them laugh.)

Assessment: The children’s enjoyment.


Objective: To define the word “change” (root=exchange-one thing for another).

Activity: Ask the children what just happened. Elicit from them that they were changing things. Move the discussion to the idea of exchange, the notion that we take one thing and substitute it for another. You might ask why anyone would want to do that. The children will begin to see that different needs bring about different exchanges. You might even briefly touch on barter, how things worked before money was invented, how people exchanged things. Ask them finally if they notice how things change all around us. How have they changed in some past unit of time, the last year, since your birthday, etc. (Make this decision depending on their ages.) The ending of the discussion at this point leads directly to the Quadrant Two, Right Mode activity.

Assessment: The quality of the children’s understanding of the idea of change.