Teaching the CORE of Respect

1. Laura A. Riffel, Ph.D. Teaching the CORE of Respect

2. Teaching Respect • Kick-off Lesson Plan- Can be adjusted for all ages. Click Here

3. Activity Two R E S P E C T • Spell out RESPECT in bubble letters on 6 foot piece of bulletin board paper. • Have the students brainstorm ways to show respect and write them in each letter. • Example: Bubble “R” • Raise your hand in class • Remember your manner words “Please” and “Thank You”.

4. Activity Three • Role play charades of being respectful • Write ideas on piece of paper like: • Holding door open for someone who has their arms full. • Picking up pieces of paper off floor. • Covering your cough when you sneeze. • Have students come up either one at a time or in teams of two and have them read a scenario and then act it out. • Have rest of class guess what they are acting out. • You can divide the class into two teams and keep score if you like.

5. Play “Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” for Respect. • Click here for sample game

6. Activity Five • Have students work in groups of four to create stop motion video of ways to show respect using clay figures. • Website telling how to do “stop motion” • http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/03/tutorial-create-stop-motion-animation.html • Have students write script and get it approved and then make clay figures for video. • Ask parents to lend digital cameras for project for the day. • The students will be learning something new- but also be talking about Respect while they are doing it. • Pop popcorn and have movie viewing day.

7. Activity Six • Have students write a letter to their favorite music celebrity asking them to write a song about respect. • Teaching letter writing skills

8. Activity Seven • Have students gather in teams of four to create a song of their own about Respect. • It has to have rhyme, rhythm, and a message. • Ask the music teacher to come talk to them about how to write a song.

9. Activity Eight • Physical Education Game • Using disposable plastic cups (you need 100 red and 100 blue) • Chain link fence on school property • Class divides into the red team and the blue team. • Relaying one team player from each group- the students run a 50 yard dash to the fence with one cup and place it in fence to spell RESPECT. The next person can’t leave with their cup till the previous runner is back and tags them. • First team to complete spelling Respect (correctly) wins.

10. Activity Nine • Have students write a 3-2-8 paragraph about respect. • Example: • At Elmore Middle, we focus on respecting self, respecting others, and respecting property. Respecting self means getting enough sleep so you are prepared for class. Respecting yourself also means doing the right thing, even when no one is looking. Respecting others means treating people the way you would like to be treated. Respecting others also means including others when engaging in activities. Respecting property means picking up litter. Respecting property also means being environmentally prudent. These are the three things we respect at Elmore Middle School: Self, Others, and Property.

11. Activity Ten • Have students make a collage of pictures from magazines showing what respect looks like. They can use half of the picture from a magazine and draw the other half. (Example: Picture of rainforest and drawing someone planting a tree to replenish the rainforest. • Ask parents to send in magazines from the following: • TIME • National Geographic • Parents • Ranger Rick • Discover • Etc.

12. Activity Eleven • Invite guest speakers to come in and talk about respect in relationship to their job and why it’s important. • Examples: • Police officer • Nurse • Airline pilot • Sports Figure • Store owner • Etc. • Have students write proper thank you letters to the guest speakers.

13. Activity Twelve • Ask students to prepare a PowerPoint Slide Show to teach their parents about the behavioral expectations of the school. • Give parameters. • There must be 15 slides or more • They must record sound • They must use clip-art or digital pictures • There must be at least one animation • They must use complete sentences • Etc.

14. Activity Thirteen • Check out this great website: • http://charactercounts.org/lesson-plans/lesson_planes_sr.php?ethical_value=respect • Ideas for all age levels- • Favorites: • PEACE Partners for Secondary • BRUSH UP on Respect for Elementary

15. Activity Fourteen • Elementary • Pretend an alien from outer space just landed at your school playground. • Write out a letter explaining what RESPECT looks like, sounds like and feels like. • Be sure to illustrate in case the alien doesn’t read English. • Secondary • Pretend an alien from outer space just landed in your school cafeteria. • Write out a letter explaining what RESPECT looks like, sounds like and feels like. • Give non-examples and examples.

16. Activity Fifteen • Check out this link to see a secondary example of using Harry Potter to teach “RESPECT” and equality for all: • http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/archives/harry_potter_learning_activity/hermione_and_social_activism.shtml

17. Activity Sixteen • Have students study the words of the Declaration of Independence and re-write the Declaration for the classroom instilling the portrait of respect for learning in the classroom. • Display the new declarations with author’s names hidden- on a bulletin board or in the hallway. Give each student a 2 by 2 post-it note and have them go out in the hallway one at a time and vote for the one they like the best. • Use that Declaration as a Class Motto.

18. Activity Seventeen • K-2 Lesson Plan on teaching respect using the five senses: • http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit156/lesson4.html

19. Activity Eighteen • Commercials • Ask the students to work in teams of two and create a two minute commercial for “RESPECT”. • Film the commercials and then show them one a day- at the start of class.

20. Activity Nineteen • Show the movie: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. • Have students take notes during the movie and write down all the signs of disrespect they see. • Have the students rewrite Snow White and the Seven Dwarves as a “Fractured Fairy Tale”- • Rename the seven dwarves into pillars of respect and write bios for each dwarf: • “Gleeful” – When the teacher asks Gleeful to do a task, Gleeful says, “Happily.”

21. Activity Twenty • Part of Respect is understanding each other’s differences: • Divide the class into partners and assign each group a different country: • Have the students study the following: • Food, holidays, housing, major exports and imports • Have students develop a PowerPoint about each country and present to entire class • Set up a United Nations and have half of class serve as UN on day one and the other half serve as UN on day two • Pose countries against each other in a dispute and have the UN committee develop a Peace Treaty between the two countries. • Example: Mexico depends on exports of machinery to the United States and the United States decided they wanted to stop taking exports of machinery from Mexico and accept machinery from India. Mexico wants to sue the US because they had an agreement for 50 years of commerce between the two countries. • The two partners for Mexico must argue their side to UN and the two partners for the US must argue their side to UN. • The UN committee must write a PEACE treaty between the two countries and convince them to work together.

22. Activity Twenty One • Poetry • Using the letters of RESPECT to start each line of their poem: • Have students develop a poem describing what Respect is by writing their poem. • The lines need to rhyme Example: Respectis quiet as a mouse Everyone everywhere in the house Shows respect by giving creed Paying homage to a good deed. Everyone deserves to be treated Carefully, so no one feels cheated. Treat each other as you would yourself. It will be good for your own health.

23. Activity Twenty Two • Math activity • Using a key where A=1 and Z= 26, each student writes a secret sentence about what respect means to them. • Then the students write math problems where the answer to the problem will be the number of the letter for their secret sentence. • Students trade papers and see if they can solve each other’s equations.

24. Activity Twenty Three • Art- purchase cheap masks and have students decoupage pictures from magazines that depict what they stand for, or what is important to them. • Have students post their masks on a bulletin board and then give each student a blank sheet of paper. • Pass out a sheet of paper that has everyone’s name written on the sheet. • Have each student write one nice thing about each student in the class. (A compliment) • Retype a page for each student with their compliments and post under their masks.

25. Activity Twenty Four • Divide students into twelve groups • Each group is assigned a month of the year. • Give each group a blank calendar grid • Have the group design a picture for the top of the calendar depicting something that happens during that month. They have to work together to create the picture. • Have the group write down one activity a day (after they number the calendar appropriately for the month). • The activities must be ways to show RESPECT • Example: May 1- Look for trash on the floor and pick it up. • Make copies of the calendar for each student to keep in their desk.

26. Activity Twenty Five • Find some articles from www.missmanners.com that are appropriate for the grade level you teach. (Be sure to pre-read) • Read several to the students and then have the students write a question to Miss Manners about disrespect. • Have the students pass these questions one to the left and then have them write an answer as if they were miss manners giving an answer about how to show respect.

27. Activity Twenty Six • For grades 3 and above (even used with middle and high school students) • Read the book Petey by Ben Mikaelsen • As you read the book, stop and reflect how Petey was not treated with respect at the beginning of the book. • (Petey is a character who has cerebral palsy and is sent to live in an institution in the 1920’s. Petey was called many names and considered to be dumb. Petey proves to everyone just how smart he is.) • As the main character unfolds in the book, discuss how he treated Petey with respect. • Then have students write to Ben Mikaelsen. He is an awesome author and Petey was a real person. He is a great author to bring to your school to talk to students.

28. Activity Twenty Seven • Print off Respect journals for the students using a variation on 3 stars and a wish. • Three good deeds I did today and 1 thing I wish I had done different. • (You can do this once a week if you like- but it is possible to do 3 good deeds a day) • I held the door open for Mr. Jones when his arms were full. • I picked up some trash on the floor and put it in the trash basket. • I remembered to wash my hands before lunch and I even used soap. • I wish I had remembered to wait to be called on when I raised my hand to answer a question.

29. Activity Twenty Eight • Read Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech.” • Have students re-write the speech with their own dream for what a respectful classroom would look like. • It has to start with “I have a dream…..”

30. Activity Twenty Nine • Bully prevention is part of teaching respect. • Brainstorm with students all the ways they have witnessed bullying in their lives: • Name calling • Threatening • Etc. • Have students brain storm what they should do when they witness bullying. • Bullyproofing your PBIS School (available for free on www.pbis.org) is a great resource to help with this topic.

31. Activity Thirty • Use the anniversary of September 11 to teach Respect. • Check out this website that has ideas for grades K-12 on using September 11th as a “teachable moment”. • Have students draw American Flags and write respectful words on all of the white stripes.

32. Activity Thirty One • Ask students to bring a shoe box to school • Set up a table with supplies: • Construction paper, glitter, clay, scraps of material, toilet paper tubes, tissue paper, pipe cleaners etc. (hint: ask parents to send in all the supplies) • Have students create a diorama showing an aspect of respect in different areas of the school. • Older students can use dioramas to teach younger students what their diorama is “teaching”.

33. Activity Thirty Two • Put students in groups of four • Give each group the following: • Large piece of tag board • Sticker dots • Markers • Index cards • Each group is to develop a game board (like monopoly) • They must develop 20 questions or cards depicting respect. • Correct answer – move forward 2 spaces etc. or • Example: • You dropped your lunch on the floor and left green beans on the ground- go back two spaces • You remembered to tell the lunch ladies thank you for your lunch- go forward two spaces. • Trade games and play each other’s games • Take games down to a younger class and use to have students teach respect.

34. Activity Thirty Three • Give students special gotchas to give out to others. • Ask them to watch each other for the next week and catch each other being good. • Have students read their gotchas aloud that they received. • Discuss how it made them feel to receive a gotcha from one of their classmates. • Read one of the “How Full is Your Bucket” (many different readability levels available) books. • Have a discussion about how it felt to fill someone else’s bucket and how it felt to get your own bucket filled by someone else.

35. Activity Thirty Four • Take students to the computer lab. • Have the students go to www.surveymonkey.com and take a survey you set up for them. • Tell the students this survey is anonymous. • Ask these questions: • 1. What are some ways you have seen people being respectful in school? (use the essay question box) • 2. What are some ways you have seen people being disrespectful in this school? (use the essay question box) • 3. What would mean the world to you? What could an adult give you that would let you know you had done a good job; but it can not cost any money? (use the essay question box) • Share results with the class and discuss.

36. Activity Thirty Five • Read the book (The Grouchy Ladybug) • Have the students make an accordion book rewriting the book with the Grouchy Ladybug being disrespectful and learning a lesson in the end of the book. • Read the book (Brown Bear Brown Bear) • Have the students make an accordion book rewriting the book with Brown Bear seeing students being respectful.

37. Activity Thirty Six • Check out this website for grades 7-12 • http://www.goodcharacter.com/ISOC/respect.html • Great lesson idea on connecting democracy and respect, as well as video clips for discussions and writing activities. • Elementary teachers can modify these ideas for the level taught.