Teaching Manners

The Best Mannered King

[All the animals were fighting in the jungle. They were all shouting and making a lot of noise.]

[Gajraj, the elephant, trumpeted and made everyone be quiet.]

Gajraj: Quiet everyone. No shouting please! Be quiet for a minute and listen to me.

[All the animals become quiet.]

Gajraj: Thank you for being quiet. Thank you for listening to me.

Rabbit: What are you going to talk about Gajraj?

Gajraj: I think we should select one animal as the king of the jungle.

Tiger: That’s a very good idea. I want to be the king.

Zebra: Can’t we have a queen?

Gajraj: We can have a queen or a king.

Zebra: I want to be the queen.

Fox: I want to be the king.

Lion: (pushes the monkey) Only I can be the king.

Gajraj: Please be quiet. Shouting is bad manners. Pushing is bad manners.

Rabbit: Who will be the king?

Gajraj: The king should have good manners. He should always say, ‘excuse me’, before talking. He should not shout or push.

[As Gajraj was talking two little squirrels are fighting over a toy. One has the toy and the other is snatching it from her.]

Rabbit: (pointing to the two animals) That is bad manners too. You should not snatch things.

Say, Please let me play with it.

Squirrel 1: Please let me play with it.

Squirrel 2: Ok let us play together.

Squirrel 1: Thank you.

Squirrel 2: Welcome.

[They play with the toy together.]

Gajraj: See how nicely they are playing. Saying please and thank you are good manners. We want the king to have the best manners.

Rabbit: How will we know who has the best manners?

Gajraj: We will watch all the animals tomorrow. We will note how they behave. Then we will vote for the king.

All the animals: Ok. Let’s do that.

[Different animals saying excuse me, thank you, please, sorry etc. in different contexts]

Gajraj: Today is the voting day.

All the animals: May we come in?

Gajaraj: Yes, please come in all of you. Let’s start voting.

[Animals start Voting. Votes are counted.]

Gajraj: Oh! It is a tie. Many of us have got equal number of votes. Let’s have one king or queen per week. This week zebra will be the queen. Next week I will be the queen. And every week we will have a new king or queen.

All the animals: Long live the queen. (3 times).

'Think Like Me, Be Like Me' is a skit performed by Class I to V children of Fountainhead Global School, Hydernagar, Hyderabad - http://www.fhgs.in. The skit has three scenes. We meet Sam in the first scene where he has a tiff with his parents. In the second scene he and his friends plan to make all the parents, who attend the annual day of the school, drink a magic solution. They think the magic solution will make the parents behave like children and they can behave like adults and order them about. In the last scene they implement their plan. Watch the skit and find out what happens at the end. Many of you have asked me for the script. Here it is: