Directions:
Read story
Discuss story
Ask students why might people spread gossip? (to get attention, revenge, to draw attention away from something they did, etc.)
Two Truths and a Lie (celebrity) [the lies do not have periods at the end of the sentences, all info was gotten off IMDb]
Talk about how even flattering rumors can still hurt someone. (if you got a new video game and I told everyone, it would take away from your joy of telling people)
Talk about how spreading embarrassing truths can also hurt someone. 
Talk about ways to stop/decrease spreading of rumors (ask students what they think they can do to stop the spread of rumors?)
Have students fold a paper in half for every time they agree with a statement.

• Have you ever been hurt by gossip
• Have you ever had a friend hurt by gossip
• Have you ever shared something true about someone else that hurt their feelings
• Has someone shared something true about you that hurt your feelings
• Have you ever shared something that you weren't sure whether it was true
• Have you ever shared something you knew wasn't true

Then have them try to smooth out the wrinkles. The paper is damaged just like our relationships and it takes a lot of patience and effort to restore the relationship to a decent place.

For my digital citizenship lesson, I used a lesson I found at Eagle Digital Citizenship. I did change what video I used. I liked this video from Common Sense Education better for my students.  Here are some examples from my students. This lesson taught about so much more than digital citizenship as students explored interests and hobbies, identified college and career goals, and personal aspirations. 

For the 5th graders, I used The Power of Words lesson plan by Common Sense Media
Here are the links to all the resources. I adapted the lesson slightly to fit what I thought would benefit my students.
​Power of Words Lesson
In the lesson, I only used Words Can Hurt and the Talk & Take Action worksheets.
Discussion Questions
Family Tip Sheet
The students had a blast making their own comics and sharing them on the overhead with the whole class. 

​Objectives:

• Understand the meaning of empathy
• Learn to use empathy to solve problems

Standards:

• Demonstrate empathy
• Demonstrate critical thinking skills to make informed decisions
• Create positive and supportive relationships with other students

Materials:

• Stand in My Shoes by Bob Sornson
• Sesame video to define empathy 
• List of scenarios from Cheerful Counseling

Directions:
Read the story Stand in My Shoes.
Ask Students to define empathy. (Empathy - the ability to understand and care about how another person is feeling.)
Watch the Sesame street video if students need further clarification.
Talk about the Five Steps of Empathy:

• Watch & Listen
  • How is the person acting
  • What is the person saying
• Remember
  • When did you feel the same way
• Imagine
  • How would you feel in the same situation
• Ask
  • Find out how the person is doing
  • How are they feeling
• Show you care
  • Let the person know you care through your actions and words.

Discuss/act out scenarios and how you can show empathy.
4 Heart: I let the students decide if they wanted to talk through the scenarios or act them out.  I loved watching the students come up with clever ways to show empathy when they acted out the scenes. The classes that choose to act out vs talking had better responses to the scenarios. 

​Objectives:

• Learn about various feelings
• Identify what zone a feeling belongs in

Standards:

• Demonstrate social maturity and behaviors appropriate to the situation and environment
• Demonstrate critical thinking skills to make informed decisions
• Demonstrate creativity
• Demonstrate ability to work independently

​Materials:

• The Way I Feel by Janan Cain
• Feelings Pumpkin worksheet
• Pumpkin Feelings cards
• Zones of Regulation Poster

Directions:
Explain that today we’re going to learn about feelings. We’re going to learn how to sort feelings into 4 different categories based on how your brain and body feel.
Blue - body is running slow, not much energy, tired, sick, sad, or bored
Green - body feels good to go, like a green light, happy, calm, focused
Yellow - caution and slow down, body is starting to lose control, feel silly, wiggly, excited, worried, anxious, surprised
Red - out of control and need to stop, extreme feelings like anger, extreme nervous
Read the story The Way I Feel.
Show Pumpkin emotion cards and have students guess what emotion they are and what zone they are in. Ask students what parts of the face helped you decide what emotion it is? Point out eyebrows, eyes, mouth, cheeks and how we use those to help us understand how others are feeling.
Have students draw their own pumpkin faces for each zones.
4 Heart: I was careful with this lesson to not reference the well-known holiday. I talked about fall for the use of pumpkin shapes because it is funner then drawing on circles. The students quickly picked up on the idea of sorting feelings into the four Zones of Regulation. My talented daughter drew the faces on the pumpkins.

Objectives:

• Increase awareness of self
• Increase awareness of differences

 Standards:

• Sense of belonging in the school environment
• Demonstrate creativity
• Demonstrate ability to work independently

 Materials:

• Book: You Be You by Linda Kranz
• Fish template p.4 (and other great ideas by Linda Kranz)
• Construction/colored/plain paper
• Large blue bulletin paper
• Crayons
• Tape/glue

Directions:
Read the story You Be You. 
As you are reading point out how the fish are all swimming but in different directions. Ask students what differences they saw. Talk about how we are like the fish in the book and we are all different but maybe we look or do something like someone else. But we are still unique. 
Have students create their own rock fish and attach to the ocean (blue bulletin paper). 
4Heart: The students loved being creative with designing their fish and how they swam in the ocean. Their ocean hung in the hall most of the year.