This week we started our second unit: Empathy. We began the lesson by reviewing the four skills for learning: focus attention, listen, use self-talk, and be assertive. We talked about the importance of continuing to use these skills all year, even after the unit is over.
We used our Brain Builder to begin our discussion about feelings. Students used Think, Turn, Tell to share with their partners about a time they felt happy. We used the rest of our lesson to learn about places we can look for clues about how others are feeling: face and body. We looked at two different photos of students to practice looking for clues and determining how they might be feeling. We looked at mouths, eyes, cheeks and eyebrows to determine how each student was feeling. For happy, we noticed the student had happy eyes, cheeks that were pushed up, and a smile. The sad student was looking down, was frowning, and had cheeks that were down. Her eyebrows were also down. Next, we practiced showing those same feelings to our partners and looking for clues that proved we were feeling that way.
We finished the lesson by having students come to the front and show how they would feel in a particular situation. The remaining students would look for clues and determine how they were feeling.
