Overview: When you respect yourself and think positively about your body, mind, skills, and situation, you can build happiness in your heart. This lesson will focus on ways to show respect to yourself, others, and your surroundings by being grateful for who you are and what you have.

Character Education Objectives:

Students will:

• journal about three things they are grateful for each day.
• discuss and practice respect for their brain and body by journaling and meditating.

Materials:

• Composition notebooks or online word document set up for journaling 

Lesson Plan:

Journal (5 mins) 

• List three things you are grateful for.
  • What is the thing you are grateful for?
  • Why are you grateful for it?
  • How does it make you feel?

Whole Group (5 mins) 

• Utilize the Calm, Headspace, or Insight Timer app to do 10 minutes of meditation. 
  • Use guided meditation or videos with soft music (YouTube) .
• Practice deep breathing techniques.
• Stretch or do yoga for five minutes to clear their heads and body of tension and stress.

Think, Pair, Share (5 mins) 

• Share something you are grateful for. 

Whole Group Discussion (5 mins) 

• How does thinking positively show respect for your body and brain?

Individual (20 mins) 

• Have students choose a relaxing activity.
  • Lego building
  • Play-doh 
  • Arts and crafts
  • Coloring pages 
    • Free Coloring pages: https://topcoloringpages.net/
  • Reading a book 

From guest contributor Michael Josephson, founder of CHARACTER COUNTS!

Martin Luther King Jr., said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” In a world increasingly dominated by unapologetic selfishness, this idea may seem quaint and outdated. Yet, for those who have a grand vision of their purpose and value, striving to be of service is not only a noble thing to do, it’s the best way to lead a truly fulfilling and significant life.

Poet William Allen Dromgoole put it this way:

An old man going a lone highway
Came at the evening, cold and grey,
To a chasm, vast and deep and wide,
Through which was flowing a swollen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim.
That swollen stream held no fears for him,
But he paused when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You’re wasting strength with building here.
Your journey ends with the ending day.
You never again must pass this way.
You’ve crossed this chasm deep and wide.
Why build this bridge at the even’ tide?”

The builder lifted his old grey head,
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

“This swollen stream that was naught for me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim.
Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

Learn more about character education.

The astrologer
An Aesop fable

A man who lived a long time ago believed that he could read the future in the stars. He called himself an Astrologer, and spent his time at night gazing at the sky.

One evening he was walking along the open road outside the village. His eyes were fixed on the stars. He thought he saw there that the end of the world was at hand, when all at once, down he went into a hole full of mud and water.

There he stood up to his ears, in the muddy water, and madly clawing at the slippery sides of the hole in his effort to climb out.

His cries for help soon brought the villagers running. As they pulled him out of the mud, one of them said:

“You pretend to read the future in the stars, and yet you fail to see what is at your feet! This may teach you to pay more attention to what is right in front of you, and let the future take care of itself.”

“What use is it,” said another, “to read the stars, when you can’t see what’s right here on the earth?”

Moral: Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.

Learn more about character education.

The wise old owl
Unknown Author

There was an old owl that lived in an oak. Everyday he saw incidents happening around him. Yesterday he saw a boy helping an old man to carry a heavy basket. Today he saw a girl shouting at her mother. The more he saw the less he spoke.

As he spoke less, he heard more. He heard people talking and telling stories. He heard a woman saying that an elephant jumped over a fence. He also heard a man saying that he had never made a mistake.

The old owl had seen and heard about what happened to people. Some became better and some became worse. But the old owl had become wiser each and every day.

Moral: Listen before you speak. You may learn more that way. 

Learn more about character education.

Learn more about character education.

Learn more about character education.

See more character quotations in our quotations database.

Learn more about character education.

See more character quotations in our quotations database.