Teaching Respect in the Classroom

One of the most important lessons I want my first graders to leave me with at the end of the year is a respect for one another. So many kids today are not taught the importance of respecting authority, their peers, or themselves within their own homes. Therefore, we as teachers have a huge responsibility to teach our littles how to show respect as they go through their daily lives. My students LOVE interactive activities, so I created a Respect Lapbook that goes through the importance of respect.

To create a lapbook, you take one piece of construction paper and fold the two sides together until they meet in the middle. Then, paste the two respect cover strips onto the front of the lapbook. My students always love getting to color in their cover sheets while we discuss what they already know about respect.

It is one thing for a student to understand the meaning of respect and be able to define the character trait. However, it is much more important to me that my students know how to show respect and put it into practice as they go through their day. This mini book is the perfect quick write for students to explain how they can show respect.

Whenever we learn a new character trait in class, I like to hold a short class meeting where we use partner talk to practice the new trait. For respect, we discuss specific words and phrases that we can use to show respect. Then, my students turn to their elbow partner and share respectful words and discuss when it would be most appropriate to use these words. As an extension activity, students return to their seats and write these respectful words on strips and place in their lapbook pocket. You can also create a circle map on the board or an anchor chart for your character wall for students to copy onto their strips.

Since we study the 5 senses in first grade, this flip book was the perfect fit to integrate science into this lesson. Once my students understand how respect looks, feels, and sounds, it is easier for them to put respect into practice in their own lives.

As a final reflection activity, students will write a narrative piece where they explain what respect means to them in their own words. I love to read these narrative writing pieces to assess whether my students truly understand the meaning of respect. Students will also share a story about a time they showed respect.

I hope you are feeling motivated to head into class tomorrow to teach your students how to respect one another. You can download my Respect Lapbook from my TpT store.

This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase through one of my affiliate links, which helps to support The Primary Brain blog. As always, I only recommend products that I love and all ideas shared are my own.

Written on June 22nd, 2018 by Laurin Brainard