Little kids often have very big feelings, and need help expressing them. A set of social emotional lessons provide tangible ways for young elementary learners to visualize their emotions, focus on clear communication, and channel their...

A lesson help scholars identify emotions through facial expressions. After a friendly puppet reads scholars a poem all about feelings, learners act out how they would feel when a specific action happens to them. Participants watch and...

Dim the lights, take a deep breath, and press play to explore the emotions and memories that music elicits. Class members begin using relaxation techniques designed to create a positive listening experience. As music plays, learners...

Students explore self-expression through poetry. In this personal health lessons students read and discuss poetry regarding teen topics of interest. Students write poems, that express empathy.

The stated goal of this unit is to use poetry to "improve the emotional health of young people." Budding poets read and then supply their own lines for poems that deal with alienation, loneliness, and rejection.

Can beautiful words change the world? Literary scholars discover how to paint their visions of change using poetry in a series of three workshops. Each independent topic gives participants a chance to examine their feelings about...

Arthur Sze's poem, "The Shapes of Leaves," encourages young scholars to notice and speak for others who "do not speak." The instructional activity begins with pupils writing about a tree that they really like. The class then examines an...

Self reflection is an important skill to reinforce in our children, and it's especially helpful to help them realize who they are in the context of their environment. A collection of lessons about self image and community encourage...

Class members come together to study Amanda Gorman's poem "New Day's Lyric." After a close reading of the poem, learners watch a video of Gorman reading her poem, and then craft additional lines for the poem where they offer suggestions...

Learners gain insight into how songs and poems express feelings of injustice. They also learn about literary devices and types of poems and make a personal connection when they write their own free verse poems about injustice.

Social classes may be explicitly defined as in a caste system or based more informally on such ideas as wealth or education. After reading and discussing an article about one woman's experience with trying to fit into a system different...

Practice using feelings as a way to reflect on past experiences. The poem The End and the text Tell Me a Story Mama are used to identify feeling words. As an extension, pupils participate in a service learning project and...

Help scholars manage stress with an activity that prompts them to think of their feelings as clouds floating over their heads. Learners identify their feelings, focus on their responses, and allow them to float away.

An exercise offers young scholars a coping skill to manage stress or other strong emotions. Learners identify the emotion, focus on how their body feels physically, then pretend they are holding a balloon over their heads, blow their...

The death of a parent can turn a child's world upside down. A curriculum guide for The Secret Hum of a Daisy explores defining moments in the main character's life, including the loss of her mother. Chapter-by-chapter discussion...

How do Poe's choices of imagery, rhythm and rhyme scheme, and structure help build the desired single effect of "The Raven"? After listening to a dramatic reading of the poem, class members consider whether Poe's choices do...

Poems are meant to be heard. Hearing a poem being read enriches one’s understanding of the tone and mood of the piece. Introduce your class to the sounds of poetry with a packet that not only details how to use poetry recordings in the...

A self-management exercise allows scholars to mindfully pause the action by identifying emotions and changing their thought processes. When pupils feel strongly about something, they imagine themselves as a remote they can pause to...

What would the world be like if everyone expressed gratitude? Pupils explore the concept by watching a motivating time-lapse video. Scholars express appreciation by handing out tokens of gratitude, and then write about their...

A coping skill helps to manage emotions. Young scholars pretend they are a remote control. When they feel strongly about something, they pause their actions, take a deep breath, reflect, and press play to get back to what they were doing.

Six lessons comprise a unit about Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine. Over time, scholars explore themes such as the power of words, exciting writing, and mixed feelings. They examine the writing's literary devices, persuasive...

Students analyze Japanese tanka poetry. In this Japanese poetry instructional activity, students identify analyze the structure of tanka poetry. Students complete the activities at the given links for the instructional activity and...

Learners investigate the history of rap as an analysis of lyrical poetry and hip hop culture. In this rap analysis lesson, students watch a PBS NewsHour clip about the difference between rap music and hip hop culture. Learners...

To prepare for crafting their own memoir, class members examine poetry by Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay, stories by Richard Rodriquez and Willa Cather, and Barry Levinson's film Avalon. They examine...