Don't Pop Your Top

Don’t Pop Your Top

Read Julia Cook’s book “Soda Pop Head.”

Show class a poster with the three anger rules on it:

Do not hurt yourself

Do not hurt others

Do not hurt property

Use a balloon to demonstrate how anger can keep building until it explodes. You will bring out a balloon and have the students raise their hands and tell you things that make them angry. You can either blow the balloon up until it actually pops or you can discreetly poke it with a tack or safety pin. Tell the class that this is what happens when we don’t deal with our anger in the right way. Just like the balloon, there is only so much we can take and at some point you end up exploding.

Next have the students brainstorm some ways that they can deal with their anger while following the three rules. Give them the Don’t Pop: Ways to Handle YourAnger worksheet. While they are doing this, blow up another balloon.

Ask students to tell you some of the ways they came up with to deal with anger. For each correct strategy, let some air out of the balloon. Tell students that by doing something to help themselves calm down, they will relieve a little bit of the pressure on themselves so that they don’t pop.