Students are struggling with empathy - especially post-pandemic. It’s undeniable. This resource is designed to help with that. It comes with a collection of products meant to teach your students to be empathetic because they never know what someone else is going through. 

PRODUCT SUMMARY:

This resource opens with an easy-to-navigate landing page where you can find everything you need to make this lesson impactful. 

The first thing you will do with your kids is play out an extended metaphor where they have to hold a box (you will need to provide this) and complete a series of predetermined classroom challenges - but there’s one catch - they can’t put down the box. 

There will be three kids completing this challenge in front of their peers, and each student will have a box that has differing amounts of weight inside. One will be light, one will be slightly heavy, and one box will be heavy. 

They will complete these challenges that are designed to make it difficult for the person with the heavy box to function. This is intentional because it symbolizes how people carrying heavy burdens may struggle with tasks that seem easy from the outside looking in. 

After the students complete the challenges, they get to open the boxes, and the class will see just how heavy one student’s load was. 

This leads the way into the set of discussion questions meant to debrief this experience with the class. There are also template slides in case you want to make your own questions or add to mine. 

To extend learning further, there are two other resources included in The Box Lesson - a graphic organizer to help students unpack empathy and a make-and-take craft. The graphic organizer is designed to help your students plan out ways to be empathetic in different situations. The make-and-take is a craft where students can write down things weighing on their minds and then color the outside of the box to remember that they are more than the burdens they carry. 

Finally, there is a page where you can add information about school and community resources that your students and their families can access if they’re struggling.  

All in all, this resource includes: 

• Plans to run The Box Lesson
• The Box Lesson classroom challenges 
• Debrief discussion questions 
• Printable graphic organizer to unpack being empathetic 
• My Own Box make-and-take craft 
• Customizable slides 

If you’re looking for other ways to support your students socially and emotionally - check out these resources! 

SEL SERIES: SOCIAL AWARENESS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES 

This slide deck leads students through learning about what social awareness is to practice it. It has discussion questions and learning activities for the class to partake in and leaves a meaningful impact on your students. 

SEL SERIES EMPATHY LEARNING ACTIVITIES, GAMES, AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 

This resource scaffolds students through identifying what empathy is, to using empathy in their day-to-day interactions. This slide deck and the corresponding activities were powerful for my students. They talked about having empathy for the rest of the year after this.