"The Big Block of Chocolate" by Janet Slater Redhead

While reading "The Big Block of Chocolate", we recorded the ways that the animals reacted when they found the block of chocolate. The animals, although in different situations, all planned to eat it by themselves, secretly. In the end, after the chocolate was found and hidden numerous times, it started to melt. An ant happened to pass by it, and without hesitation, the ant invited all the other ants to come over and share the chocolate. 

In the end, the children noticed that the animals who wanted to eat the chocolate secretly, ended up with no chocolate at all. The generous ant was the one who enjoyed the chocolate along with the other ants. 

At the end of the story, after our long and thoughtful discussions, the children in the wind group shared a block of chocolate. There were enough pieces for the children in the wind group, but not enough to share with all the other groups. 

Grace tried in many different ways to find a good solution:

"let's break our piece in half." (still not enough for everyone)

"let's take a bite each" (not possible, because of the no sharing something that you put in your mouth rule)

"let's just not eat chocolate at all" (is that really fair?) 

"buy an extra chocolate and share after" (the store is pretty far and we don't have a car to drive there)

and then the idea came!! 

"LET'S SHARE OTHER THINGS FROM OUR LUNCH KITS"  

Angela "I have no snacks. Actually, I have some apples. I'll share five pieces." 

Kesler "I'll share my rice cracker" 

Grace "I'll share my cheese crackers"

Alexia "I'll share my chocolate crackers"

Janet "I don't want to eat anything, so I will think some more if I want to share something from my lunch kit." 

The children all initiated this sharing idea and they all tried to be fair to all the children at school. Caring and being principled are the traits that came to mind right away. There is definitely give and take in generosity and people can work together to come up with solutions that are advantageous for everyone.

Esme wasn't here on Thursday and she would love to share snacks with everyone at school. Her idea was to all get together and plan a big generosity celebration. 

The children all happily agreed!!