We've Got Character!

It's more than just teaching character traits for me. I think it is so important that our kids are not only familiar with good character traits but are encouraged to live them daily. I really try in my classroom. I hope to instill the value of character in my students every year and I am always proud to show off my class!


The first 9 weeks, our LA/SS unit focuses on citizenship and is the perfect time to introduce character traits. We read several books on character as a class and dug deeper into our stories we were reading throughout the week. We identified traits of good character and offered examples to explain why. We learned about Famous Americans in history and what made them a good citizen. We chose someone we knew (family member or friend) that we considered a good citizen and shared why. We wrote about how we are good citizens. So I guess you could say, we really hammered the topic!

As our culminating activity,  I had the kids choose character traits that described them, cut a hole in the middle of a long construction paper for their face...See??

Here is one of my student models. :)

This idea was just too cute that I wanted to display it. So I went around and took their pictures while their face was in their paper.  Then from my home computer (it took a little time), I opened up each of their pictures in Preview to crop. I used the elliptical feature to frame their face.

Then I printed them out and simply taped to the back of their paper. The next day, they were stapled on our bulletin board. The kids love it!

 Last Wednesday, I was out in the afternoon since my lil kindergartener was sick, and my sub was so complimentary of our class. She loved that they used their manners and commented on their "good character". She gave specific examples of students showing good character and complimented the entire class several times. And THAT'S what it's all about. Makes me so proud!

What do you do to teach good character traits?