The books might be called, "Manners for Grade ___ Students," "Manners is our Favorite Subject," or "We Love Good Manners."
Each student completes a few HyperCard stack pages on a specific area manners. The pages are merged to create a class stack about good manners.
Students create posters and banners about manners.
Students write thank you letters to a guest speaker or for a gift.
Students make an outline about good manners at the theater, in the home at a meal, at a party, etc.
Students create stories about problems with manners. These stories should be the type which end but are not finished. The stories are printed and distributed for the class to read and role play the situations.
Students create party invitations, menus for a party, favors for a party, etc.
Students write a letter to their grandparents.
Students practice good manners during use of telecommunications. (Teacher might want to use the information provided at this site on Safety Online )
Students make a data base which includes the titles, names, street addresses, cities, states, and zip codes of their parents. They use this data base to create address labels. The labels are attached to letters inviting the parents to a special program about good manners.
Students write crazy stories about mealtime disasters. The stories are saved and printed. Other students read the stories, and then write their suggestions about how the mealtime disasters could have been averted.
Students create HyperCard stacks or computer presentations on proper use of utensils at meals.
They scan photos or drawings of the utensils and place the scanned pictures into the stack.
Students create a classroom newspaper on manners.
Students become playwrights as they write plays about good manners during sports and recess.
Students use graphics and sound to demonstrate how to make introductions.
Students write articles to the newspaper about their studies of good manners.
Student take digital pictures of children using good manners. They add text and publish posters of good manners.
Students make up brief dramas about use of good manners. They put these on videotape and then into computer presentations.
Follow-Up/Extensions: Parents and community members appreciate class activities which emphasize good manners. Communication with the community is suggested. Parents and community members will enjoy being invited to the school to hear about manners programs, and to view the computer presentations and other computer-related products. Students may present programs on good manners for other classes.
Adaptions: This project may be completed using one classroom computer. Students or student groups may take turns putting information into the computer. A LCD or other projector may be used for the class to work on the project together.
Suggestions for Parents: There are so many ways to teach and reinforce good manners at home. First of all, you must set expectations for mannerly behavior. Children need to know what they are expected to do and that they must live up to expectations. Often showing by example will be enough for children to know how they should act. However, they'll be sure to observe actions and speech on television, online, and in public that will be unacceptable to your family. They must know that you will not accept these behaviors.
Just practicing answering the telephone can be great fun for "your special telephone answerer. " Helping to plan a special dinner and showing good manners at the dinner is exciting for a young child. Helping Mom be seated at the table or holding the door for older people is something children enjoy. Having fun with good manners can lay the groundwork for the future.
Beginner's Guide to: Good Manners
Stay Calm!
Try and keep cool, particularly in the heated discussion areas. Bear in mind that it is very easy to misread the tone of a message, and give it a sarcasm that was never intended. Often a smiley is used to indicate that the writer is joking, it looks like this: :-)
DON'T SHOUT!
Beware of leaving the caps lock on when writing e-mail or USENET messages, and only typing capital letters. It may make things easier for you, but it instantly marks you as a beginner, and is generally refered to as shouting. YOU CAN PROBABLY SEE WHY!
Ask clear questions.
If you are mailing someone with a question, (and have read the FAQ!), then make it as easy as possible for them to help you. Make your question as clear and specific as possible, and if relevant provide as much information as possible.
Consider the following two versions of a question:
Please Help! I am new to the net and don't know what to do!
Where can I find a good Beginner's Guide to tools for using the net?
I am using a Macintosh computer. Thank You.
The second version encourages a concise and to the point answer, and is much more likely to get a helpful response..
Don't get offended easily
There are some very helpful people on the Internet, and also some very busy people. So don't get offended if you do not get a rapid reply - no one is obliged to help you out, and some people get an awful lot of e-mail.
Give something back
If you do get a lot of information back as the result of a question, then you will very likely also get several e-mail messages along the lines of "I'd like to know too if you find out" It may be a great help to other to summarise all the information you receive and tell the USENET group or mailing list. Many of the helpful guru's out on the net will also appreciate a short thank you message.
Keep a small sig
Many users like to have a witty quote or saying at the bottom of their messages, known as a SIG, (Short for signiature). Some also go way over the top with all sorts of quotations, jokes, favorite locations on the web, and even pictures done in type. Keep your sig to 4 lines or less.
Stay on topic
Always try and be sure you are asking your questions or leaving messages in the correct place. Sometimes discussions drift onto new topics, and this is very confusing for those who were expecting something else entirely. It is also good manners to live and let live. For example it would not be acceptable for a scientist to leave critical messages in the astrology discussion group - the astrology group is for people who DO believe in it. Similarly, it would not be acceptable for an astrologer to make provocative posts in the astronomy discussion areas. (There is a separate USENET group called sci.skeptic for this sort of heated confrontation!).
Some people will also place messages absolutely everywhere with no regard for it being appropriate. This is generally called 'spamming' after the Monty Python sketch in which the characters order Spam, spam, spam, spam, sausage, spam, and spam.
Don't let them wind you up
Some childish net users like to deliberately leave messages to wind up other net users.
