Wrinkled Heart Guidance Lesson
4th and 5th Grade
My goal with this guidance lesson was to teach students how unkind and disrespectful words can hurt others. During grad school, I did a group project with this lesson and fell in love with the message it sent to students.
For this lesson, I passed out blank hearts to students and instructed them to color/decorate/draw in the heart however they would like. I told them that this heart was a representation of their own heart.
I think told them that when you're in 4th/5th grade (depending on which grade), many things happen each day. Some good, some not-so-good. The not-so-good things can really hurt our heart.
I went on to say "As I read the story of our 4th/5th grade friend, there are some not-so-good things that happen to our friend. Every time something not-so-good happens, tear a piece of the heart". (I also tell them to actually tear it, not little tears).
Of course the kids starting FREAKING OUT! They had just spent good hard time making their hearts look exactly how they wanted to, so they were NOT happy. I told them to trust me when I say everything will be okay.
I went on and read the story and watched the kids (sadly) tear their hearts every time something not-so-good happened to our friend.
Once I read the story, I think asked the students:
- How does your heart look now?
- Who can tell me how to put the heart back together?
- What are some things we can do to make sure we don't tear our friends hearts?
- I told students that saying hurtful and mean things is very hard to undo and sometimes you can never put the heart back together to look the same.
After we discussed, I passed out construction paper and instructed the kids to glue/tape their heart back together as best as they could. Of course, most of them couldn't glue their hearts back together to look the same. I used some examples of those hearts as visuals for the kids.
We discussed that no matter how hard you may try to put a heart back together, sometimes it is simply impossible-that hurtful, mean, and disrespectful words damages a heart beyond repair.
I ended the lesson with telling the students to keep their hearts as a reminder for when they get upset/mad/sad with a friend to remember that hurtful words can't be taken back and can tear someone's heart.
The link for the story I used for the activity is included in a Tolerance lesson I found at: http://www.mmsa.info/sites/default/files/downloads/pages/Tolerance.pdf
Here are some pictures from my 4th grade class:
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