Kids Helping Kids

Resources for Teachers

Check out these teaching ideas, interdisciplinary activity ideas, and related online resources for your classroom.

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Teaching Ideas

Social Learning:
Teaching Young Children Sensitivity

For younger students, read I'll Love You Forever by Sheila McGraw, illustrator, and Robert N. Munsch (Firefly Books) or Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman (New York: Penguin, 1995). Teachers can use these books to start a class discussion on difficult topics, such as divorce or death. Have students practice dealing with these scenarios in the pairs by role-playing a conversation between two friends. Follow this activity by having the class make sympathy cards to give to an imaginary friend who is dealing with a difficult situation. Encourage the students to personalize the card as much as possible and suggest ways inside the card that they can help their friend. If students know of a friend who is upset, have them create the card for him or her.

The Power of Peers: Classroom Ideas to Build Positive Friendships

Helpfulness Hula Hoop Pass
Divide the class into groups of 5-6 students. Have all the students join hands in a circle. Place a hula hoop on the arms of two students in group. The goal of this activity is to pass the hula hoop around the circle without breaking the circle. To do this, the students will have to bend their bodies and help the person next to them move the hoop. After this activity, teachers can talk about what made the groups successful: Flexibility? Patience? Good listening skills? Teachers can stress that these are the same traits that make a good friend.

Develop Conflict Resolution Skills
The following activity is recommended by UNICEF and is an excellent outline of how teachers can set up peer mentoring programs to help other students:

"The cooperation crew is a team of students that will help mediate and resolve disputes in your class. Children who have good interpersonal skills and who are respected by their peers are often the best people to teach other children. First, choose a few students for the crew. Spend time working with them to develop the skills they will need to resolve conflicts. Reinforce that their only job is to get the students on both sides of the dispute to listen to each other and to work together to solve a problem. They should ask seven questions when dealing with conflicts: What is it that you need? What do you think the problem is? Can you think of a way that we might solve this problem? Would you be happy with this solution? Do you both agree to this solution? Is this the problem solved? Can we talk again to make sure the problem is really solved? Let the class know that when conflicts arise, they should ask one of the students for help. When you see other children learning these skills, rotate the members of the crew."

Moral Models: Kids Help Kids Make Moral and Ethical Decisions Everyday

Read Aesop's Fables with your class. As part of a language arts lesson, introduce the idea of a fable and script a performance for students in your class. Talk about how the fable attempts to teach a lesson about interactions between people. At this age, it is important to have the students make a connection between the animal characters and people. For example, a teacher could ask students:

The moral of the story is _____; how do you think this applies to how you act in the classroom, at recess, or after school with your friends? Do any of the characters in the story make you think of a person you know or a situation you have been in?

After a class discussion, select students for parts in the play. Plan making the background and perform for parents. This lesson is applicable for language arts, art, health, and social studies.

PBS Online Resources: Sites to See

• In The Mix: A Primer On Peer Mediation
  http://www.pbs.org/inthemix/educators/lessons/schoolviol1/index.html
• In The Mix: Cliques, Friendship Groups, Or Boxes?
  http://www.pbs.org/inthemix/educators/lessons/schoolviol2/index.html
• People Like Us: Class and Health (You Are What You Eat)
  http://www.pbs.org/peoplelikeus/resources/lessonplans/health.html
• PBS Kids Democracy Project: City, County, Community
  http://www.pbs.org/democracy/kids/educators/citycounty.html