Many teachers find a journal to be a great tool to enhance an elementary school student's self-esteem. Journals are most useful when created right when classes begin, to be worked on throughout the year and kept as a permanent reminder of accomplishments and an expression of creativity. Teachers may check in with each child several times a week to ensure they are adding to their journals on a regular basis and should gain each child's permission to view individual entries. Artwork, writing, poems and daily notes on classroom activities all help children develop a way to get in touch with their feelings and express themselves as individuals with important contributions.
Another project for the start of the school year involves pairing children with classmates they aren't very familiar with. Each child conducts an interview of the other, asking questions in an effort to get to know him or her. The children then take turns presenting their findings to the classroom as a way of introducing everyone to each other. Identifying common qualities and familiarizing themselves with people outside their comfort zones help children develop a sense of self-worth as well as reinforcing classroom bonds that will last throughout the school year.
Teachers can provide context for self-worth by allowing children to experience it outside of the confines of the classroom. Kids provide their parents with paperwork informing them that the child is working on self-esteem concepts, and needs the help of their family. This worksheet can include a number of different activities; asking parents to tell their child about their own sense of value and how they dealt with problems, encouraging the child to document positive qualities in family members or friends and having the family sit down to talk about how they should deal with these issues together.
Grade school children hold any number of real and imagined perceptions about themselves, and identifying self-worth issues allow a teacher to target subsequent projects to deal with some of these ideas on a personal level. Positive traits can be built upon and negative ones worked through after explaining the concept of self-esteem and handing out questionnaires that ask how children feel about themselves and where they see their strengths and weaknesses. Children can create an artistic representation of how they imagine themselves to be, or create a short essay on the results of the test and share it with the class. Planning productive self-worth projects become easier when a teacher is more familiar with where the students are at in their self-development.