North Carolina Society for Ethical Culture Activities

The North Carolina Society for Ethical Culture, an AHA affiliate, has used the following plans with a range of elementary school age children, primarily ages 7 and 8 -with some younger and older. Adapt as needed to suit local needs.

1. Introductions: Getting to Know You --  (1) Have children sit in a circle and each tell their name and age. (2) Do this over and over asking different question each time and having the child (or parent) write down the child's answer on an index card that the child holds. Questions: What is your favorite food, TV show, sport, game and color. Have the children play a guessing game to see how many of each child's answers they can remember. (3) Switch places:  Have children sit in chairs and one by one a child says another child's name and they have to switch places. Then the second child says another child's name and they switch places. It goes on until the children get tired. (4) Musical chairs:  Play music while children are dancing around a set of chairs and have them quickly find a chair to sit in when the music stops. (5) Free dancing to music in a group. (6) End with a song: ask for suggestions from the children.

2. Cooperation: We Do it Better Together -- (1) Name game: Each child says their name and does a complimentary movement; everyone copies this. (2) Ball game: Each child hits the ball gently in a circle and all work together to keep the ball in the air as long as possible without letting it touch the ground. The children count together every time someone taps the ball and it stays up. (3) Mirror gesture circle game: Each child performs a sound or simple movement or both in turn and the next one in line repeats the sound and movement of the child in front of him or her.(4) The wave: One child starts a movement and the others copy it one at a time so that it looks like a wave. (5) Simon says: Teaches children to pay attention to a leader and cooperate with directions given quickly. (6) Run, walk, stop: Music plays and children have the option of running, walking or stopping. They do this to movement. The next level occurs when children do this as a group, watching each other to follow which type of movement they want to do as a group. (7) End with a song, e.g., One Man's Hands and The More We Get Together.

3. The Golden Rule and Giving Thanks -- (1) Have children sit in a circle and each one say three things they are thankful for. (2) Draw a picture of something or someone you are thankful for and tell about it. (3) Discussion: What is The Golden Rule and how can I follow it? (4) Have a child tell about a difficult situation at school and have the group do an improvisation about how they could follow The Golden Rule in this situation. (5)  Mirror game in a circle. (6)  End with a song, e.g., Happiness Runs or others.

4. Wishing On A Star: Cultivating Hope -- (1) Is there anything you wish for? How do we make wishes come true? (2) Hand out construction paper stars. Have children draw a picture of something they wish for inside the star and share if they choose. (3) Have children write down their wish and plant them along with a bulb in a flowerpot. Discuss how the bulbs have to be watered and that by watering the bulbs regularly, they will sprout; just like the wishes they plant along side them. (4) Have children think of three things they can do to make it more likely that their wish will come true. (5) Have children act out their wish coming true. (6) End with a song, e.g., Beautiful Rainbow World, Wish Upon a Star, Last Night I had the Strangest Dream.

5. Self Respect- I get Better and Better -- (1) Name game- Each child says their name and does a gesture and the rest repeat the name with the movement together. (2) What does respecting yourself mean? What are some ways you have already gotten better and better? Why is important to keep getting better and better? Does respecting yourself make you have more respect for others? Why do you think it works? (3) List things you are proud of about yourself. (4) Write down or tell about one thing you would like to work on doing better. (5) Talk about three things you could do to get better and write them down or have an adult write them down for you. (6) Draw a picture of yourself doing something that makes you feel proud -- something you can already do or would like to be able to do. (7) Shake it out: a fun exercise to release tension and help kids re-connect with their bodies. (8) Each child is given a movement to perform. First they perform this movement and then they improve upon it to make it feel better to them. (9)Talk about what you learned today. (10) End with a song, e.g., Man in The Mirror --  played on tape.

6. Celebrating Diversity: Each Person is Important and Unique -- (1) Name/gesture game (2) Read The Human Race by Jaime Lee Curtis. Discuss what diversity means. What does it mean to be unique? What are some ways that you are unique? Is diversity a good thing? Why or why not? (3) Fingerprint exercise: Have each child print their fingerprints on a sheet of paper. Compare prints. Are they unique? Make a picture out of your fingerprints. (4) Rainbow color exercise - ROYGBIV:  Each child chooses a smock to put on (one of every color in the rainbow). Children line up and one at a time tell about three things that have the same color as the smock they are wearing. e.g. blue is the color of the sky , etc. Discuss the pros and cons of having different colors in the rainbow and what they think the world would be like if all there were only white, black and shades of grey. (5) Tell a story about a person you know who is different than you and how this makes you feel. (6) Talk about one way your family is different from others Do you like being different? (7) End with a song:  Beautiful Rainbow World and Everybody Loves Saturday Night or others.

7. What I love and how I show it -- (1) Name/gesture game (2) Read The Giving Tree by Shel Slilverstein.  Talk about someone you love and how you show it. How does it feel to express love? (3) Make a collage from pictures about things you love.  Tell about some of the things you included and  how it feels to look at things you love. (4) Make a plan to show love for a cause, e.g., "I love nature so I am going to pick up litter every day." Work on this over the next few weeks and report back next class about how. (5) Share about a time someone showed you love when you really needed it. Then share about a time you showed another person love when they really needed it. (7) Love Eggs-periment-  Talked about how an egg was very sad and needed love and encouragement to feel better. It was sitting at the bottom of a glass of water. Each child added some salt and the egg slowly rose to the surface (e.g., grew happier and it's mood got lighter and lighter until it was floating). (7) Group knot: a physical exercise that gets people giggling. Each group member starts out by touching at least one other member and must stay in physical contact with at least that one member throughout the game, touching as many other people as they can hold on to. (8)  End with a song, e.g., All You Need is Love by The Beatles.

8. I am Free to Think for Myself  (Ethical Decision-Making) -- (1) Name/gesture game. (2) Read Milo and The Magic Stone by Marcus Pfister. It is about a mouse who finds a golden rock that gives warmth and light on cold dark days. There are two endings, a happy and a sad one. The book shows that consequences differ based on choices we make as individuals. (3) Have each child talk about a good choice they once made and the positive consequences that followed. Also, if they like, talk about a negative choice and the consequences that followed.  How do you know if you made a ‘good' or ‘poor' choice? (4) Zip/Zap/Zop Transformation game: The Box -- An exercise in using your imagination to solve problems and trusting your own instincts and thought processes. This is done one at a time in front of the group. (5) Read cards telling about typical conflicts of school aged children (from the ‘Thinking, Feeling Doing Game' or, ‘The Stop, Relax and Think' Game.) Act out a positive solution to the problem. Have others comment on whether the solution was positive or negative and why. (6) Ask why they think it is important to think for themselves; have them tell about a time when they did this and what the consequences were. Talk about how this ability gets better and better as people grow older and gain experience in the world. (7) End with a song, e.g., What's That I Hear Now by Phil Ochs.

9. Peaceful Problem Solving -- (1) Name/gesture game (2) Read a story about peaceful conflict resolution, e.g., Paul and Sebastian by Cynthia Zarin or from Love Your Neighbor by Arthur Dobrin. (3) Talk about different ways of solving conflicts peacefully, e.g., what each person wants, propose a solution that helps both, or seek out someone in authority who can help find a better solution. (4) Present children with a conflict situation and have them act out a peaceful solution. Talk about things that prevent people from solving problems peacefully, e.g., feelings like anger, not being able to control emotions, lack of trust in others. (5) Draw a picture of what world peace would look like. (6) Trust game: Have one child at a time close his or her eyes and hold out their hands. Have other children take turns touching their hands gently. This teaches children to trust each other. (7) Have each child think about something that makes them angry. Then have them breathe in and out slowly three times. Instruct them to notice if they feel less angry after taking time to breathe. (8) End with a song, e.g., We Can Work it Out and Imagine, both by The Beatles.

10. Patience Wins The Prize (Self-Mastery) -- (1) Name/Gesture game (2) Read The Tortoise and The Hare. (3) Have children think about times that they were patient and how it did or didn't pay off.  (4) Play Simon Says and Nomis Says -- doing the opposite only ‘Nomis Says' adds a level of difficulty and requires lots of patience with one's self. (5) Practice counting to 10 one at a time without first organizing who goes when. This is a good team-building game and requires. (6) Mirroring in pairs -- to be accurate mirrors, it is important that children move slowly. (7)  Play Jenga Stix where a tower is built out of small blocks and children take turns slowly removing one stick at a time trying not to allow it to fall. This requires patience with oneself and others. Have children encourage one another and be silent while others are removing sticks. (8) Have each child plant a seed and pretend to plant a wish along with it. Talk about watering the seed. For younger children, read the book The Carrot Seed. (9) End with a song, e.g., You Can Get it If You Really Try by Bob Marley.

11. Preparing for and Conducting a Field Trip for Earth Day -

(1)  Name/gesture game (2) Read  and discuss a story from Love Thy Neighbor involving respect for nature and the earth and My Two Gardens. (3) Discuss things you like about the earth. What are our responsibilities to nature? Talk about the saying "Earth does not belong to Man; It is Man who belongs to the Earth." What does this mean to you? (4) Draw parts of the earth that you love and respect. Talk about your picture. (5) Call out words about the earth and write them down on a large sheet of paper. See if you and the class can write a poem or Haiku. (6)

End with a song, e.g., The Garden Song by Dave Mallett. 

12. The Earth Day Field Trip --  (1) Discuss the origin and purpose of Earth Day and the simple things each child can do to help the earth and make it a better planet on which to. (2) Talk about recycling and the difference between biodegradable and non-biodegradable garbage. (3) Find the lyrics to two Tom Chapin songs and create some simple dance exercises to act them out. The songs are Good Garbage and RECYCLE. (4) Put on rubber gloves, carry garbage bags, and walk to a local site to find non-biodegradable garbage.  Talk about what you found and about how we could continue this work on our own.