Empathy - 3rd grade

​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.