The Handy School Counselor: Self Esteem!

The Dot

Having a positive self esteem is such an important thing for our students in their daily living. It helps them in so many different ways... setting/achieving goals, having confidence, feeling worthy, etc. Students of all ages need to feel loved and important. They also need to understand that their unique qualities is what makes them special. This lesson was designed to encourage students by lifting them up with words of encouragement and positive feedback from their classmates

I started the lesson off by showing my students The Dot Video.

Discussion: We discussed how Vashti was inspired by her teacher and how she used that inspiration and confidence to make other paintings and creations. One of the things we discussed was "What might have happened if Vashti's teacher had not framed and posted her picture?" We talked about the importance of lifting each other up and encouraging each other with our words.

Group Activity: Before the activity, I precut a heart in the center of a sheet of construction paper. We used the sheet to write down words that described how we LOVED (or things we thought was special) about one of the students I had chosen from the class.

The student that was chosen for this activity always went back to their seat with a huge smile on his/her face and said that the positive things his/her classmates had to say made them happy.

Class Activity: (Although I tweaked this lesson to make it my own, the original idea came from this link.) The class sat in a circle on the floor and each student received a sheet of paper with a DOT (or circle) cut out in the center. The students were instructed to write their name at the top of the paper and then pass it to the person on their right. The person that received the paper had to write one positive word that described their classmate. Once they completed this task, they waited on my instructions and when I told them to "pass it", they would pass it to the next person on their right until each child's paper had made it around the circle.