Videos Related to Ethics and Character

Benny and the Birthday Berries - Self Control

Sesame Street Video - Empathy

Singa and the Kindness Cubbies - Empathy

Resources - Can be Used for Morning Meeting or Buddy Activities

EHow - Character Development Activities for Elementary Students

Origins Online- Social Emotional Meets Academic Learning - Ideas for Games, Greetings, and Shares

Hula Hoop Cooperative Game

Teaching Kids to Make Friends - Activity

Anti-Bullying Pledge - Could use this idea to substitute CARES words and develop a class pledge

Laura Candler's Teaching Resources

Teachers Pay Teachers - Character Development 

Elementary Character Education Ideas

Teaching Tolerance - One World, One Heart Beating

Teacher Guides for Character Education and Life Skills

Using Drama to Teach Ethics and Character

Character Education Activities from Internet4Classrooms

Printable Good Deed Cards

Social Skills Reflections Pages

 Story Lessons of Character Building

Respect For All Week

Morningside Center For Teaching Social Responsibility

 Respect for All Week is a week set aside to teach students to value diversity and respect each other. Morningside Center for Social Responsibility has some terrific classroom lessons that are perfect for teaching these concept. Many of the activities are designed for primary and middle grades.

 Responsive Classroom Newsletters - Online Links to Current and Past Editions
These newsletters contain targeted information relevant to our work with ethical literacy. Look through previous editions to build your collection of community building activities for the classroom. There are lots of great ideas for Morning Meeting activities.

Educators for Social Responsibility 

Elaine Luers recommends this site.  From the site: Since the early 1980’s, ESR has been a voice for change in America’s education system—a voice that says we must teach and inspire the whole student if we are to help all young people become active, contributing members in our communities.

The site contains an online Teacher Resource Center for teaching about conflict and social responsibility. Lessons are available for free download, but you must register with the site to access the lessons and activities.

Some teachers have started using the idea of "bucket fillers" with their students. This concept is based on the book How Full is Your Bucket? for Kids. This book introduces the idea that we all carry an invisible bucket in which we keep our feelings about ourselves. When our buckets are full, we are happy and positive, when they are empty we are sad. The important part for children to know is that they can help fill buckets of family members, classmates, and friends by saying nice things and helping each other. Here is a link to a blog post that further explains bucket fillers. It also contains a link to some posters that can be used to guide discussions.

Bucket Fillers - Ron Clark style

Another place to learn about these resources is found at the Teaching Hearts Blog in this post:
Bucket Filling for the Classroom

We know there is much more to ethical literacy than simply being "nice", but these resources may help young children to learn about respect and compassion by treating others in a way that they would like to be treated.