Overview
FREE FOR K-12 TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND DISTRICTS
The Compassion Project - Elementary Empathy Curriculum
Compassion lesson plans and kindness activities for elementary school students
STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Understanding Compassion
- Teaching Empathy Activities
- Self Compassion
- Practicing Compassion
- Mistakes & Self-Care
- Mindfulness
COMPASSION COURSE OVERVIEW
One of EVERFI’s Social Emotional Learning training courses, The Compassion Project, has been helping educators teach elementary school students the complex but critical skill of compassion since 2018.
Compassion is an important social-emotional skill that begins to develop in early childhood and is essential for lifelong health and success. Learning compassion increases a student's sense of wellbeing and improves the learning environment for all learners. By developing empathy in children, educators lay the groundwork for long-term understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom and in life. Compassion education is important because it helps to build key social-emotional learning competencies, such as:
- development of the understanding of self
- social awareness, and
- relationship skills
With interactive online activities and robust offline lesson plans, The Compassion Project provides invaluable resources for teaching empathy in the classroom.
What’s included in this compassion course?
The compassion project consists of six lessons, three geared towards lower elementary school students (2nd & 3rd graders) and three geared towards upper students (4th and 5th graders).
The Lower Elementary Compassion Course has three online lessons; Compassion Playground, EmpathEyes, and Mindful Maze.
The Upper Elementary Compassion Course also has three online lessons; Compassion & Empathy, Mistakes & Self-Care, Emotions & Mindfulness.
You can explore all of the compassion lessons below in detail.
KEY DETAILS
Preview the Lessons - Lower Elementary Course (2nd-3rd)
Compassion Playground
Before students can understand how to act more compassionately, they must first develop a foundational understanding of the concept. In this lesson, compassion is taught in context so that young learners are able to relate it to their own personal experiences.
Preview the Lessons - Upper Elementary Course (4th-5th)
Now Available!
Compassion & Empathy
In this lesson, students are introduced to definitions and depictions of compassion and related concepts, emphasizing that compassion can be a learned behavior. Students are encouraged to observe instances of compassion in their school and home lives.
