Read "The Grasshopper and the Ants," one of Aesop's fables about a grasshopper who enjoys life all summer long by playing music and eating the season's abundance. Meanwhile, the ants work all summer collecting enough food to store for winter. Once winter comes along, the grasshopper is starving because he did not prepare. Another story relating to diligence versus laziness is "Tops & Bottoms" by Janet Stevens, which was a Caldecott Honor Book. In the book, Lazy Bear sleeps all day while a hare's family works hard farming his land. The two have a deal to share the crops, but Lazy Bear doesn't realize until too late he is getting the short end of the bargain.
Bring the proverb to life with a puppet show for the children. Use a red hen puppet to tell the story of the "Little Red Hen," who works hard planting and tending her wheat, while the dog, cat and mouse are lazy. She ends up making delicious bread but eats it all up herself because they did not help. Another puppet show idea is to use people puppets to role play different scenarios conveying diligence and laziness. A boy puppet may ask a girl to go out and play when they should be working on their math homework. The girl refuses, but the boy acts lazy. Later, she does well on her exam, while the boy fails.
Part of understanding diligence and laziness is making the right decisions. One way to do this is making a decision cube for children. Print out a free cube template from Enchanted Learning or A to Z Teacher Stuff. Help children write questions on each side to help them make the right decisions on matters they face every day, such as, "Is it good?" or "How will I feel about it tomorrow?" Another craft idea is creating chore sticks to help children learn the importance of work. Children color one end of a craft stick with marker, and adults help them write different chores on the other end. All the children in the household have jars and their parents put the sticks into the jars. Once the chore is complete, it goes into the "Done" jar.
Sing songs to motivate children about diligence versus laziness. "I've Been Working on the Railroad" is about working hard on the railroad. While singing, the children can act out the lyrics. They can pretend to blow a horn when they sing, "Dinah, blow your horn," or act out playing the banjo when they sing, "Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o." Another example of a hard work song is "Peter Hammers." In the song, "Peter hammers with one hammer, one hammer
one hammer; Peter hammers with one hammer all day long." During the song, the children pretend to hammer their fists together.