I am excited to share my monthly lessons of character for February! The character trait is courage and for those in a PYP school, the learner profile attribute is Communicator. You can see the January lessons here.  When writing these lesson plans, I had too many ideas that I just couldn't leave out! Each lesson is designed in a similar format:

• Introduce the concept of courage/communicator
• Show an example of courage/communicator
• Participate in an activity to explore courage/communicator more deeply
• Reflect on how student can apply skills in their daily life

To meet the needs of your school, you can choose from a variety of historical figures that displayed courage or you can choose a video or story of kids showing courage. I've included two full pages of ideas in the lessons. Simply choose one for the entire school or one for each grade level. You can view links on all topics on my Courage Pinterest Board.

In this lesson, students explore how they can apply the skills learned in the example of the historical leader in their own lives. If your students are able, they can write a sentence at the bottom of the page or you can write the sentence for them. This is a great way to personalize the story of a historical leader. In this example, we used the story of Florence Nightingale. This entire lesson is available for free in my TPT store. 

Courage is more than doing something scary! In this game, students draw a card and decide whether the card describes courage. If yes, the class gets a balloon. If no, the teacher gets a balloon. The page with the most balloons wins! Spoiler alert- there are more cards with courage than without so the class should always win! Of course, our PYP friends are included with a set of communicator cards as well. 

Second graders create a balloon to show how they can show courage or be a communicator. When they're done, add a string on the balloons to create a great bulletin board. These look so adorable when you have a whole class (or grade level) set.

This lesson goes well with the kindness tree post a few weeks ago. Let the kids do the hard thinking on how to show kindness! What a great discussion too- why does kindness take courage? Why is kindness a tool of the communicator? I would love to be a fly on the wall to listen to every single conversation these two questions start!

You know I love a good role play! Role plays are only as good as your expectations. I like to be really clear about what is expected in a role play and the rubric helps to do that. When kids know exactly what's expected of them, they really rise to the occasion! 

The fifth graders in your school are your leaders. Help them to spread the word about historical leaders who showed courage and communication. If you can, allow students to research the historical leaders included in the lessons and then create posters to encourage others to act courageously or be a communicator. If you don't have enough computers to allow the students to research online (using the links provided), you can print some materials for them to use. 

If I had to sum up my organization philosophy, it would be to think about it once and make it easy for yourself in the future. I've been using the Solution Focused counseling technique for most of my students for many years. It's helpful to write down what they say so that I can remember where we are each time quickly and without a lot of digging. To do this, I keep a clipboard with all of my current students on it. This clipboard stays in my office and is kept in a confidential spot so their information is not shared with everyone. 

The "path to solutions" guide includes questions to ask in each stage of the process and guides you right through the solution focused theory. This is also really helpful for new counselors or experienced counselors who are practicing a new theory. 

On the back, there is a spot to keep a log of the student's scaling and a few notes about their progress. If I need to go back through the process with the student to identify other solutions, I just use a different color pen so I can keep it all straight. I have some pages that have 3-4 colors of pen written all over them! When a student is seen for a completely separate concern, I use a new paper. 

To help elementary students scale, I created a mood meter that uses smiley stars to correspond with the scale numbers. This helps students to pinpoint where they are on the scale. I have a bunch of these printed out and laminated in a library pocket in my office. I have even had students reach over for one without being prompted! If they are laminated, students can write on them with vis a vis pens or dry erase markers each time they come in. When they are no longer receiving individual counseling, you can easily erase the marks.

This whole set is available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store! 

How's it going with your kindness challenge this year? If you haven't started, it's never too late. I want to share an amazing idea that a colleague of mine, Chris Dudek, had- a kindness tree! She uses this idea around Christmas but I see it being applicable to other times of the year!

Here's what she has to say:

Isn't that an amazing idea? I see so many extensions - hearts on a white tree for Valentine's Day, pencils on a tree at the beginning of the school year, and turkeys at Thanksgiving.

To create the tags, Mrs. Dudek printed acts of kindness on labels and affixed to diecut  winter shapes. You could also incorporate the making of the tags into part of a lesson on kindness and have students make tags! Isn't this the coolest? I am so inspired by this idea! 

For January, we will be exploring self-discipline through goal setting. If you are a International Baccalaureate PYP school, I have also included the PYP Learner Profile attribute "thinker." 

These are fun, interactive lessons that I really think your kids will love.  Just in case you can't wait to find out the yearlong plan - here you go!

For this lesson, I really wanted to introduce the concept of actions that take you towards a goal and actions that take you away from a goal. I've worked with so many little ones that really struggle to see the connection between choices and consequences, and this seemed like a natural fit. In this lesson, the class works together in a cooperative game to try to reach the top of goal mountain. You could easily make this game by hand but if you would like the game ready-made, you can purchase here on TPT. 

For my first graders, I wanted them to begin thinking about a goal that they would be interested in and then 2 steps for reaching that goal. It was important to me that they be able to write their own goal. This is a hard lesson for first graders but, with support, can be so valuable. Really, the goal doesn't matter - it can be to collect all the My Little Ponies in the world - just as long as the steps to reach that goal are related. In this example, my students are always concerned about beating their mile time in PE - our PE Coach is great about incorporating goal setting into his talks on fitness and health. This would also be a great lesson to do with star shaped die-cuts!

In this group activity, students will receive a baggie of cards that contain 5 steps to reach a goal. Working together, they sort the cards in order of completion. This activity is designed to get the kids thinking about order and purpose to reaching a goal. Once they have completed a set of cards, they can trade with another group and keep going!

Moving on up to Third Grade and working on independence! I don't know about you, but my students LOVE role plays. They literally cheer when they hear we are doing role plays in a lesson. Honestly, I love them too - so fun AND some great independent skill building. Here, students will work with their group to plan a role play that includes a goal and five steps to achieve that goal. I've even created a rubric to help students know what is expected of them. 

Let the creativity flow! Fourth graders have most likely already begun some goal setting in their learning. To expand this concept, they can create a cartoon showing an identifiable goal and three steps to reach this goal. I have always been impressed over the years how creative kiddos can get when creating a cartoon. This is one of my favorites for sure.

In my district, fifth graders are getting ready to enter the world of middle school as 6th graders. January is a great time to start focusing on their ultimate goal - lockers and independent lunch (kidding- mostly). I've created an awesome SMART Goal printable that you are welcome to use in your office or during a SMART Goal lesson - it's FREE in my store. Below, I have an example of the fillable worksheet I created to go with the 5th grade lesson. 

Whew! I knew that was going to be a long post! These are simple, focused lessons. It is always my goal to provide you with all the information that you need to recreate on your own. If you prefer less planning (or better clip art and fonts), you can purchase these lessons as a bundle at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Each individual lesson can be purchased separately as well (links in headings).