The work of true affiliation

What is the best way to handle a situation when the same child is picked last for a team? How can caring adults make things fair when children choose to be on a particular child's team, and no children choose to be on another child's team? This happened in our classroom today, and we worked very hard to help the children see what was going on and figure out a way to make sure the same situation didn't happen again. In today's game, one of the children was upset because most of the other children chose to be on a different team. We played the game anyway but this child's team ended up losing----not because of lack of numbers. After the game ended, the child lay down on the floor, covered his face, and was very still. Most of the other children rejoiced in their victory. Two other children entered the room and asked what was wrong with the child on the floor. They showed genuine concern and caring. I called all the children together to talk about the situation. Why was this child so upset? How could everyone help? One by one each child approached the upset child and asked what he or she could do to make him feel better. They said that it made them sad to see him so upset. They said that they hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. Together they brainstormed a number of different ways to form teams the next time they played. Slowly the child on the floor looked up. He then joined in the discussion with his own ideas. Within a few minutes he was playing happily with his classmates in the sandbox. An important lesson was hopefully learned. We are committed to continuing this kind of work in our class.