This activity stresses seeing and rewarding positive behavior. Cut out a paper tree and place it on a wall in your classroom. Ask the children to draw and cut out apples from red construction paper. Place the apples, a roll of double-sided adhesive tape and a pencil in a basket under the tree. Explain to the children that when a student sees an example of positive behavior in a classmate, she takes an apple from the basket and writes or draws what she observed on the apple. The child places it on the tree with the tape.
Assign a different grade level to present a character-education assembly program each month. All staff and students attend the program, and parents are invited to participate as well. Children present a learning activity about a character trait, such as honesty, sharing essays about the trait or dramatizing it in a skit. The children practice teamwork to plan the program and develop a sense of responsibility for the success of character education in their school.
Children read stories throughout the elementary curriculum about characters who make wise and unwise decisions. Initiate age-appropriate discussions about the dilemmas the characters faced, and if they made good decisions. If the characters made poor decisions, ask the children to rewrite the stories with characters who make different choices. Let the children share the new stories and talk about how the new decisions changed other components of the stories.
Write questions on index cards or sentence strips and place in a box. Examples of the questions include the following: How do you feel when you are told that you did a great job? How do you feel when you are blamed for something you did not do? How do you feel when you answer all the questions on your history test correctly?
Ask the children to stand in a circle. Choose a leader to draw cards from the box. The leader stands in the middle of the circle, reads the card and selects a classmate in the circle to respond to the card. The classmate selected responds verbally or through body language after stating, "I feel..." Other students in the circle attempt to interpret their classmate's body language, talking about why some students experience specific feelings and how to help someone cope with negative feelings. Designate a new leader after two sentences to allow every child to be the leader.