It is important for students to learn about responsibility at home, at school, and during extracurricular activities. Social responsibility strategies are important for students to be successful in their academic careers, as well as their adult lives. There are many different lessons on responsibility and many of the lessons below provide real-world context for students to use as discussion. These 22 activities are perfect for the elementary classroom as they are engaging for students so jump right in to get inspired!
1. When to Say Sorry
This is a great activity to teach children about responsibility and when to apologize for the negative consequences of their actions. Learning how to apologize is a life skill and students will use the tools provided in this lesson throughout their lives.
Learn more: Social Emotional Workshop
2. Fake or Real?
This activity helps kids to see the difference between a sincere apology versus a disingenuous apology. The lesson includes several examples of apologies that kids will determine as either fake or real. Then, they will discuss how they can tell the difference.
Learn more: Social Emotional Workshop
3. Practice How to Apologize
This is another apology lesson that gives kids different ways to practice apologizing. Through this lesson, kids will understand the meaning of responsibility and how everyone can make mistakes that call for an apology.
Learn more: Understood
4. Play a Cooperative Board Game
Cooperative board games are the perfect way to teach students how to work together and collaborate in order to meet a goal. This responsibility game allows students to assign roles and practice the collaborative component of responsibility.
Learn more: Big Life Journal
5. What Is Responsibility?
In this lesson, students will define the meaning of responsibility. They will also determine a responsible action from an irresponsible action and use role play to think about responsibility. This is the perfect intro to responsibility lessons.
Learn more: Talking Tree Books
6. Accountability Scavenger Hunt
This activity teaches children how to be accountable. Kids will group up, and then, each child in the group will be responsible for finding a number of the items on this list. After the activity, the class will have a discussion about different community responsibilities.
Learn more: Classroom
7. Grow Plants
Learning how to keep something alive is perhaps one of the greatest responsibilities in life. Whether in a classroom setting or at home, having a child be responsible for keeping a plant alive teaches fundamental responsibility skills.
Learn more: Perkins
8. Create a Classroom Assembly Line
Creating a classroom assembly line is a fun activity to teach classroom responsibility. Students will be responsible for one element of the assembly line and they will see what happens if one person doesn't complete their job.
Learn more: Classroom
9. What Would You Do? Lesson
In this lesson, students will use scenario cards to think about difficult situations. Students will determine what they would or wouldn't do. This is also a perfect way to connect responsibility to social-emotional learning.
Learn more: Family Education
10. Teach the Apology Cake
The apology cake is another way to teach students how to apologize. This is a great activity for lower elementary students who need more direction on the words to use to formulate a genuine apology.
Learn more: Educ at All
11. Growing Grateful Bulletin Board
This classroom activity promotes interactive participation from classmates. Teachers can put a stem on their classroom door or on a bulletin board and students will create a tree by putting leaves up when they are grateful for something.
Learn more: Ice Breaker Ideas
12. Character Buiding Bulletin Board
There are so many character-building bulletin boards to choose from. From teaching about "honest Abe" to displaying good role models, this list of bulletin boards will inspire teachers to create a board that fits the culture of their school and classroom.
Learn more: Mrs. King Rocks
13. Play Friend and Foes
Friend and foes is an interactive game that helps students visualize the effects of how they treat people. In this game, students will be assigned a friend and a foe, and the student must keep their friend in between them and their foe.
Learn more: Ice Breaker Ideas
14. Handful of Responsibility Activity
This is another demonstration that teaches children responsibility. Students will pass around a large handful of coins, buttons, or anything that is small. As they pass the handful of items around the room, no one can pick up anything that drops. Students will learn how each person is responsible for taking care of the items, and the items that drop affect the whole group.
Learn more: Character Council
15. Helping Hands Activity
This is an art lesson on personal responsibility. Kids will trace their hands and arm. Then they will write what they are responsible for on each finger. After they color their hands, the class will discuss the activity and what students are responsible for at home and in the classroom.
Learn more: Character Council
16. I'm Responsible For My Emotions
This is a social-emotional learning task that helps students understand that they are responsible for their emotions. Students will think about how they react under no stress, mild stress, and heavy stress using a stop-light model. Then, they will discuss how they can move from red to green; in other words, how they can calm themselves down.
Learn more: Drake University
17. Clifford Gets a Job Responsibility Lesson
This lesson uses Clifford Gets a Job to talk about responsibility. After this read-a-loud, kids will discuss how they can be responsible in different areas of their lives, like school, home, and extracurricular activities. Kids will love comparing their experiences to those of the literary characters.
Learn more: Great Expectations
18. Learn the Responsibility Song
Kids love to sing, especially in lower elementary school. In this activity, kids can learn The Responsibility Song. This is a great way to introduce a responsibility unit, and the lesson can be used multiple times throughout the lesson or the school year as a refresher.
Learn more: Carolyn Hoover
19. Watch Kids For Character Responsibility Episode
The Kids For Character video is another learning tool that is perfect for introducing or concluding a unit on responsibility. Teachers can elicit student responses using a writing activity following the video or through a class discussion.
Learn more: Gary Eisenberg
20. Use Aesop's Fables to Teach Responsibility
Aesop's fables are a classic way to teach morals. "The Ant and the Grasshopper" is a fable that specifically teaches responsibility. This lesson is meant for lower-grade classrooms, but it can be adapted for any grade level.
Learn more: Ms. Rispoli's Class Blog
21. The Senses of Responsibility
This is a classic lesson plan that helps students think about what responsibility feels like, looks like, and sounds like. Elementary teachers can have students work in small groups to create a poster describing the sense of responsibility. Then classroom teachers can display the posters on the walls of the classroom.
Learn more: Counselor Keri
22. Read Pigsty and Define Responsibility
Teaching character skills with picture books is a great way to start a conversation and get kids interested in learning about responsibility. In this lesson, kids will read Pigsty and use the lesson in the book to define responsibility.
Learn more: Counselor Keri
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