Thursday, April 30, 2015

Garden of Greatness: a Lesson on Self-Esteem



Brighten up your classroom and your student’s self esteem with this colorful bulletin board and lesson.
Hi There!  Last week I posted on Facebook about how my team's hallway needed a spring make-over.  We were stuck in winter mode and the dark blue butcher paper was starting to depress me.  I needed color!  I needed funshine...  yes...  I said FUNSHINE!!

This week, I had planned a lesson on self-esteem for my 4th graders.  Part of our curriculum is to teach students about tobacco and alcohol resistance.   I always start this conversation with lessons on self-esteem and friendships.

I started the lesson with a quick powerpoint with two pictures: one of a child frowning and looking down, the other of a child smiling and looking confident.  I had the students brainstorm words to describe each of the kids.  Then I introduced them to the term self-esteem.

We then went to kids health.org and read the article "The Story of Self-Esteem".  I use kids health.org a lot.  It has great articles written so that kids can understand the concepts.  The website even has a read-aloud feature.  My students LOVE it because it is a computer voice that often pronounces words incorrectly and they think that is hilarious!

After we added our notes to our health notebooks, I introduced the "Garden of Greatness" craft.
I had each student brainstorm a list of things that he or she is good at, things that made them feel important, or things that made them feel unique and special.

I passed out strips of bright colored paper and circles pre-labeled with their names.  Students glued between 4 and 8 of the strips onto the back of the circle.  When that was done, they turned over the flowers to the front side and wrote ideas off of their list onto the strips of paper.

To finish the project, I collected the flowers and stapled them onto the bulletin board.  As I stapled, I wrapped each petal to the back.
Brighten up your classroom and your student’s self esteem with this colorful bulletin board and lesson.

Brighten up your classroom and your student’s self esteem with this colorful bulletin board and lesson.
The finish product turned out great!  Bright, colorful, and full of FUNSHINE!! 

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6 comments:

  1. The garden looks great! What a good idea.

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    1. Thank you! It sure has brightened up our hallway and the students love seeing their flowers on display.

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  2. What a wonderful idea! And beautiful:)

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    1. Thank you! My students enjoyed the activity and I'm enjoying the display. :)

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  3. What a wonderful idea! And beautiful:)

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  4. A wonderfull idea, love it! I think it can be changed with the season too like the snow flake and how we help others on each point of the flake.

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