Leaders in History: Courage to Be Kind

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.

Kindergarten: Courage My Way

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. 

First Grade: A Bundle of Courage Balloons

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 Grade: Rise Up in Courage & Communication

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.

Third Grade: Courage in Kindness

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!

Fourth Grade: Role Play It

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! 

Fifth Grade: Character Posters

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. 

All the Extras

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). 

Also included in the February set on TPT is a set of 20 quotes that exemplify courage, communicator, and kindness to use in morning announcements or newsletters. I've also created a reproducible update to send to parents and staff about the monthly lessons for both courage and communicator.