Edutopia
Empathy
Teach your learners about support, respect, and listening skills with an activity about empathy. Class members set goals for themselves regarding their peer relationships, and monitor their own progress over a period of time.
Learning for Justice
Showing Empathy
A short social-emotional learning instructional activity teaches high schoolers how to show empathy toward others. After completing a short survey that has them assess their understanding of empathy, the class learns specific behaviors...
Conflict Resolution Network
Empathy
Children are naturally friendly and communicative, but often have a hard time expressing their emotions in a clear and understandable way. Help them hone their communication skills with a set of activities based on creating empathy,...
Curated OER
Building Empathy Creating Community
Learners thrive in a classroom where they are part of a strong community. Foster a collaborative atmosphere in your classroom with a series of activities focused on conflict resolution, communication, empathy, and defense against bullying.
Curated OER
Emotion Card Games
Emotions come in all shapes and sizes, and can be difficult for young learners or students with special needs to identify. Support them in gaining the valuable social skill of recognizing emotions and understanding empathy with this...
Learning for Life
Empathy
How would it make you feel if...youngsters learn a valuable life skill in considering how their actions affect other people. They evaluate different scenarios and draw pictures of things they could do to make someone feel better.
Anti-Defamation League
Cyberbullying and Online Cruelty: Challenging Social Norms
"Everybody does it!" is often the clarion call to justify cyberbullying. Here's a lesson plan that encourages high schoolers to challenge these behaviors. Participants examine images, watch videos, and engage in discussions designed to...
Museum of Disability
Taking Down Syndrome to School
Teach your class about the ways they can befriend and understand people who are different from them with a reading comprehension lesson. As youngsters read Taking Down Syndrome to School by Jenna Glatzer, they answer a series of...
Museum of Disability
Don't Laugh at Me
You can prevent bullying in your classroom by addressing kindness, empathy, and acceptance with your littlest learners early on. After reading Don't Laugh at Me by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin, kids discuss the ways that words can...
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Conditions in China: Why Might One Leave Home Forever?
Primary source texts provide scholars with the background information they need to understand why Chinese peasant farmers were driven to emigrate. After underlining keywords, phrases, and/or lines in the texts, individuals craft a...
Health Smart Virginia
Face of Mental Illness
To develop an understanding of the stigma surrounding mental health problems and the impact stigma and discrimination have on those who would seek help, groups investigate the symptoms of and risk factors associated with eight different...
Curated OER
Lesson: Skin Fruit: Ideas of Empathy in Janine Antoni's Work
Kids get artistic as they explore the impact of art materials, sculpture, and performance. They discuss the work of Janine Antoni and then create a performance piece that reflects social or global issues they feel strongly about. The end...
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl Matilda Lesson Plans
Fifty eye-catching pages contain six lessons about Roald Dahl's novel, Matilda. Each lesson has a theme and covers a different subject—literacy, social-emotional learning, science, and geography. Scholars analyze characters, examine...
Autism Speaks
Autism Speaks School Community Toolkit
Guide members of the educational community in understanding and supporting autistic learners. A kit from Autism Speaks includes an array of tools designed for parents, teachers, and community members.
Anti-Defamation League
Dealing with the Social Pressures that Promote Online Cruelty
Why do people engage in cyberbullying? What can be done about it? These are the questions middle schoolers consider in a very timely lesson. Participants view PSA announcements, read a case study, and participate in scenarios designed to...
Smithsonian Institution
Who's in Camp?
Pupils complete readings, a group activity using cards, and a writing activity to better understand people's lives during the American Revolution. The resource emphasizes people such as the militiamen, women, officers, and children,...
Museum of Disability
Stand in My Shoes
Stand in My Shoes, a story by Bob Sornson, is an effective way to teach young learners about empathy and making friends. Once pupils read through the story, they answer a series of discussion questions and complete reading activities...
Museum of Disability
Rolling Along
Kindness and empathy can be as important as reading comprehension skills, especially for younger learners. Reinforce both with a lesson based on Rolling Along: The Story of Taylor and His Wheelchair by Jamee Riggio Heelan. As...
Museum of Disability
Ian’s Walk and Apples for Cheyenne
Help young learners understand friendship and empathy with two reading comprehension lessons. Each lesson plan focuses on a story about a child with autism, and encourages readers to compare and contrast the characters to each other and...
Anti-Defamation League
‘Migrant Caravan’ and the People Seeking Asylum
The controversies surrounding migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. have recently been a hot topic. To understand some of the issues involved, young scholars investigate the Migrant Caravans of 2018. A 10-page packet, including photos, a...
Ophelia Project
Let’s Be Friends
Introduce positive social skills and friendship to young learners with this wonderfully designed eight-lesson unit. It includes several activities to help learners identify positive attributes, build empathy, and understand the qualities...
US Institute of Peace
Organizations Working for Peace
We're all in this together! Show young scholars that peace is a process and having the support of like-minded people can make it happen. 13th in a series of 15 peace building activities, groups conduct research on a peace organization,...
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum
Service Learning Projects
Service learning projects provide pupils an opportunity to put the theories they are learning about civics into practice. Scholars investigate the needs of their community and then adopt a project for them to become involved in.
Advocates for Human Rights
Voices of Iraqi Refugees
The stated goal of this resource is to provide learners with basic facts about and build empathy for Iraqi refugees. To do so elementary classes develop a plan for how to welcome refugees to their classroom. Middle schoolers read...