A Wrinkled Heart

I think the image of a wrinkled heart is a powerful one to help students visualize the way our words affect others. In first grade this week we are learning about put-ups and put-downs. I read the story Bad Apple and discussed how Mac felt when the other apples were being mean to him. One of the things I like about this story is that we do not see the behavior of the other mean apples change in the book when Mac is different from them, but we do see Mac and Will supporting each other as friends in spite of the unkind words. So often students must decide how to handle the teasing when changing the mean kids is not in their circle of control. They are able to empathize with Mac in the story and relate to the feelings of sadness and loneliness he feels when being teased. I do want all students to be empowered to choose kind words and recognize the staying power of their words.

After our discussion, I wrinkled a heart each time a child told me something mean someone had said to them until it was a crumpled ball. I tried to smooth the heart back out with some of the nice things they say to each other. But we compared the heart with wrinkles to a smooth heart and discussed how we can never fully erase all of the mean words from our memory.

Students made a wrinkled heart craft as a take away from the lesson. They cut out the heart and put in some wrinkles since those mean words were on it. Then they wrote kind sayings on band-aids and glued them over the mean words. This activity is available for download here.  

Kid President's video "20 Things We Should Say More Often" is a perfect end to this lesson!