Content Area: Career Education and Consumer, Family, and Life Skills

 

Index: 9.2D Grade 4 CPI 1

 

Standard: 9.2 - Consumer, Family, and Life Skills

 

Strand: D - Character Development and Ethics

 

Cumulative Progress Indicator: 1 - The student will  demonstrate character traits that are important in day-to-day activities in the home, school, and community such as trust, responsibility, respect, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

 

Grade: 4

 

Sample Activities:

 

·       The behavior of sports stars and movie personalities has been called into question. Develop a system for identifying and promoting positive role models in the community.

 

·       Caring Pumpkins: During the fall, describe what pumpkins are, how they are used, and how they are grown.  Caring in an important basic trait of individuals.  How can caring be tied to pumpkins?  A class does a community service project of painting pumpkins to place in a local elder care facility.

 

·       Use stories/poems (such as The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, The Crane Wife by Odds Bodkin, Who's Sick Today? by Lynne Cherry, The Weaver and the Princess - a Malaysian Folktale) to discuss caring.  Discuss items such as help and comfort for those in need; being kind and considerate of others; thanking those who complete acts of kindness; forgiving those who are mean or thoughtless; and giving to others your time and resources to make life better for another person.

 

·       Give each student a cutout pumpkin and have them each write three things about a fellow student on the pumpkin.  Names might be drawn randomly.  Ask for volunteers to share responses.  Place pumpkins in a scrapbook of caring.

 

·       For the topic, trustworthiness, read a book like Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; My Friend Flicka by Mary O' Hara, or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Jude Blume.  Discuss whether the characters were trustworthy.  Make a list to support yout answer.

 

·       In conjunction with having students having jobs in the classroom such as feeding a fish, water plants, hanging projects, etc., discuss what a trustworthy helper is.  Use a star chart to recognize students being trustworthy in completing the tasks.

 

·       Students brainstorm ways of showing good manners on a playground.  Students who use good manners and do nice things on the playground show respect for others.  Using the brainstormed list of good manners, develop a cartoon that depicts the concept/idea of the use of good manners.