Free character education lesson plans are my gift to teachers, and to parents who are home schooling children. Yesterday, I was writing a free character education lesson plan to insert in our newsletter, the Character Builder. The entire letter focuses on the character trait “equitableness”, and I wanted to help parents and teachers find a good way to teach this important trait to young children.
Let me share part of the lesson plan with you. If you’re interested, you can sign up now for the newsletter, and you’ll get the entire article at the beginning of May. You might also want to encourage your local teachers and your friends to sign up for the Character Builder newsletter.
Equitableness Lesson for Young Children.
Children as young as preschool ages can learn the meaning of this trait. They can learn to say the word, too. In fact, young children delight in learning to accurately repeat words that are almost too big for them.
Introduce your lesson by teaching children to say equitableness. Break the word into syllables. Have the children repeat after you, saying it slowly and distinctly. Try having each syllable repeated by a different group of children. Have a different child say each syllable. Exercise equitableness in this!
Display a scale. The best kind is a balance scale – the kind pictured on page one of this newsletter. However, you can use a regular bathroom scale, baby scale, postage scale, kitchen scale, or meat scale if a balance scale is not available. With your scale, display a number of items, each of which weighs the same. Select items that are different in type: 5 pounds of feathers; 5 pounds of rocks; 5 pounds of flour; 5 pounds of peanuts; 5 pounds of paper; 5 pounds of cotton; and 5 pounds of candy. Let the children identify their favorites.
Guess what ….
Where would you go next? If you were writing a simple lesson plan for this character trait, what would be your next step? Could you define the trait in words simple enough that a preschooler will understand? Can you make the concept live for elementary school students? Can you make it clear for visual learners and add something for kinesthetic learners? What will your aural learners be doing while you are teaching this important trait?
Suppose you wanted to teach secondary school students the vital importance of embracing equitableness and developing a habit of it in their lives before they become adults. How would you go about that?
I’m covering a lot of those points in my newsletter article, but there isn’t room for all of them. What I’d really like to do is convince teachers that there are crucial secrets to successful character education, and that those secrets are available in my free Character Education 101 eCourse. I wonder what would happen if every teacher you know took that free course, and worked hard at teaching every character trait.
That isn’t likely to happen, but maybe my short article can help teach equitableness to young children.
That’s the view from my chair. What’s your view?