Character Traits Straight from the Heart

There are so many things I love to teach since making the move up to third grade!  I love teaching character traits, fables, tall tales…I could go on and on.  This lesson comes straight from the heart…

So I pre made hearts on a necklace for each student.  My plan was to have them write 2 inner traits about themselves on it and walk around and have classmates add to it.  This was a big hit.  The kids loved getting up out of their seats and enjoyed seeing what their peers thought of them.  Of course we prefaced it with be positive, everyone has a bad day but think about the good things about your classmates.

Then we wore these proudly after spending a few minutes reading them.  Next I had them decorate a blank head to focus on their outer traits.

We then reviewed the difference between a FEELING and a TRAIT…which in my unit I make sure to address.  I even included a sort so kids understand that someone might be angry after something happens but that doesn’t mean they are always angry.  I think that’s a very important concept for them to grasp.  A feeling is very different from a trait.

We had fun sharing our hearts and pictures we drew with one another…kids added dimples, braces, scars  and freckles so they were accurate.

Later in the day we read : Alexander Who’s Not Do you Hear me?  Going to Move!  { And also Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Day } to see consistency in his character.  Then we worked on an external and internal character trait page on him.  We had a blast and learned a lot.  They all very proudly ( even in 3rd grade wore their hearts home today )… I call that #winninginthirdgrade 

If you are teaching on this concept – you can grab my unit on  

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