Sweet Respect

We continue on our Character Counts Education with the Pillar of Respect. We start our lesson today with an experiment on how words are powerful tools.

Experiment:

Materials: bowl of water, pepper, sugar, and a bar of soap

-Begin by sprinkling pepper liberally on the water.

pepper represents the people around you-classmates, teachers, friends and family.

Discussion: how we get along with people is largely determined by how we treat and speak to them. Our words can be very powerful tools, either for good or bad, and it’s important to learn positive and respectful ways of speaking to others.

Bar of soap -represents unkind and hurtful language. (Touch the bar of soap to the center of the water. The soap will repel the pepper and cause it to be dispersed to the side of the bowl.)

-When we speak unkindly to others, they will not want to be around us, and they will scatter just like the pepper.

-Take a teaspoon of sugar and pour it in the center of the water.

Sugar -sweetness of kind and respectful words. (The pepper will be drawn to the sugar.)

Outcome: Being respectful towards other people usually causes them to be drawn to us and want to be our friend.

I have the students go back into their groups of three where they get to perform the experiment themselves. They each have a large sheet of paper near-by (make sure it is away from the potential spill of water). The groups have to come up with examples of pepper, soap, and sugar. I ask that they make up invisible (fake) individuals instead of naming actual classmates/teachers.

For example: pepper- Ms. Hopkins, Michael, etc. soap- when I tell Michael he can't shoot a basketball sugar- Telling Michael that I can help him practice basketball, because practice helps to improve skills.

I have each group share their responses to their peers. The students talk about other ways "sugar" can be shown, for example through our actions or even facial expressions. We watched this short YouTube clip to show how our actions can be just as powerful as our words.

If time permits, we play the facial expression game. I chose students names out of a hat and have them come to the front of the room. They drawl an expression out of another hat and act it out to their classmates. The group has to guess what expression they are showing. This helps to teach our students the power of our expressions, and how we can use them in our daily lives.

Exit Ticket: What is one kind thing you have done or said to someone this week.