Within this collection you will find lessons, videos, handouts, and teacher guides you can use in your classroom.  You will also find a brief summary of each resource with the source sited for further exploration, appropriate grade level, approximate lesson length, and learning standards.

Five-day unit plan that leverages the power of the Classroom Circle to teach classroom expectations, recognizing values, self-awareness, emotions, strengths and struggles, teamwork, and empathy. The Classroom Circle is a powerful tool in building a classroom community. It's a way to teach and practice expectations for speaking and listening, as well as creating a classroom that provides a safe place for students to be vulnerable, empathetic, and to build on their own self-awareness.

Within this collection you will find lessons, videos, handouts, and teacher guides you can use in your classroom.  You will also find a brief summary of each resource with the source sited for further exploration, appropriate grade level, approximate lesson length, and learning standards.

10-lesson fifth grade unit to build classroom culture focused on identity, diversity and community.

10-lesson fourth grade unit to build classroom culture focused on identity, diversity and community.

Intergenerational Stories
A Lesson Developed and Contributed by Christine Hennig, MA, LMHP, ATR With a Link to Copyrighted Dick Blick Lesson Plan “Home Town Map” www.DickBlick.com

Objectives (Elders):
1. To encourage reminiscence, which has been shown to be beneficial for elders

2. To increase feelings of self-worth by discovering that elders have interesting stories to tell about their lives

3. To increase feelings of self-worth by passing on their wisdom to young people

4. To brighten moods through contact with young people

Objectives (Children):
1. To bring history lessons they may have learned in school to life through contact with people who have “lived it”

2. To encourage respect for elders by discovering what they have lived through and learned from their experiences

3. To increase tolerance for disability and aging

Audiences:
This is a project to complete with a small group of elderly people plus a small group of school-aged children. It is recommended that you have group facilitators for both the elders and the children (i.e., at least two—one for the elders and one for the children). Elders should be high-functioning and be able to tell their stories. Elders with mild dementia, but still good long-term memories, can be involved if there is extra staff or volunteers available to work one-on-one with them and the children to encourage and guide.

Through a sequence of activities using songs, creative movement, and picture books,  students will learn about each others’ similarities and differences, gain an appreciation for cultural diversity, and identify ways that various social and cultural groups bring new ideas to society.