Equality and Human Rights Commission
Empathy
Scientists discovered empathy is a learned behavior, not an instinct or inherited behavior. The second lesson in a 12-part series focuses on teaching empathy, an important life skill. Scholars use discussion and role playing to practice...
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.
International Boys' Schools Coalition
Empathy
Putting yourself in someone else's shoes is a common phrase we hear from time to time, but do children really understand? Explore empathy with elementary schoolers using these activities. Focusing on feelings and emotions, students role...
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...
Boys Town
More Tools for Teaching Social Skills in School
Put an end to wasted instructional time with this lesson on responsibility and preparedness. After completing this series of activities young scholars will learn the importance of these social skills not only in the classroom, but at...
Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers
Justice for All - Educating Youth for Social Responsibility: Grades K-5
In grades kindergarten through fifth grade, scholars take part in a social-emotional learning unit designed to boost social responsibility. Three hundred pages provide lessons and activities related to everyday classroom practices, the...
Read Works
Cool to Be Kind
Make a connection between empathy and bullying with a reading passage that has readers thinking about other people's feelings. After reading, learners respond to ten reading comprehension questions involving short answer and multiple...
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
Can You Hear a Rainbow?
Teach your class about compassion and empathy with Jamee Riggio Heelan's Can You Hear a Rainbow? As kids read about Chris, a boy who is deaf, they discuss the things he likes to do, as well as the ways he communicates with the world.
Guidance Group
101 Ways to Teach Children Social Skills
Increasing pressure to improve student achievement has made it easy to overlook the social skills they also need to develop. With this collection of worksheets and activities, you'll be able to improve children's communication, teamwork,...
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...
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...
Do2Learn
Social Play Action Figures
Three activities stem from one hands-on project designed to explore character traits. Scholars create an action figure that reflects their personality to teach others about themselves and role play conversational skills.
Ohio National Guard
Emotional Intelligence
Guide young learners through the tumultuous emotions of growing up with a set of worksheets about self-esteem and empathy. Each instructional activity focuses on a different skill, allowing youngsters to work through their feelings and...
Museum of Disability
A Picture Book of Louis Braille
Teach kids about the beginnings of the Braille writing system with a lesson about Louis Braille. A series of discussion questions guide young readers though A Picture Book of Louis Braille by David A. Adler, and once they finish the...
Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Can’t We All Just Get Along? Conflict Resolution Strategies
Respond rather than react—that's the big idea behind a lesson on conflict resolution strategies. A richly detailed plan teaches high schoolers strategies for resolving conflicts. Pupils play charades, engage in verbal and non-verbal...
Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers
Justice for All - Educating Youth for Social Responsibility: Grades 6-8
Teach middle schoolers how to develop healthy relationships with activities and lessons designed to create a kind and inclusive
classroom. Pupils create guidelines to develop a safe and civil learning environment. They learn how to...
Health Smart Virginia
Tinkle Times
The big idea in the last lesson in the Health Smart series is that individuals must practice emotional first aid, that just as we take care of physical injuries, we must take care of emotional injuries. Scholars watch a short video and...
Global Oneness Project
The Importance of Indigenous Language Revitalization
Middle schoolers consider languages as representations of cultures and the importance of preserving various languages, especially the rapidly disappearing languages of indigenous peoples, in a lesson that tells the story of Marie Wilcox...
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...
Skills USA
Personal Growth and the Personal Leadership Inventory
What are employers looking for in prospective employees? Career-minded high schoolers examine their strongest technical skills as well as important 21st century skills, including leadership, empathy, clear communication, working well...
Curated OER
The 16 Habits of Mind
Study the 16 Habits of Mind with a professional resource. Based on Describing 16 Habits of Mind by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick, the resource details 16 ways learners perceive problems around them and produce ways to deal with those...
Thoughtful Learning
Taking Action Against Bullying
A mini-lesson offers suggestions for young learners on how to take action against bullying, both for themselves and others. Individuals then craft a paragraph about strategies they might use.
Thoughtful Learning
Seeing Emotion in Facial Expressions
Learning to read body language, especially facial expressions, is the focus of a mini-lesson. Young learners examine a series of photographs, identify the emotion being illustrated, and then discuss the cues that revealed the emotion.