Social Awareness
Family Resources on
Honoring others
Lesson Topic
Honoring others
*Warning, the following lesson presents a constructive way to honor a peer who has died. Please watch this video and read this lesson before presenting them to your class and follow school and district guidelines accordingly.
Essential Questions
How do we honor those who mean a lot to us?
If this lesson was used in the classroom: Students learned the definition of honor and how to honor someone who is important to them. During one of the class activities students participated in a group activity where they created an “Honor Ceremony” for someone the class feels is important to them as a group.
Getting Ready for the Conversation
The video for this lesson features a group of students who were friends with a student named Nadar. Nadar passed away at a young age and his friends did several things to honor his memory including organizing a running race in his memory.
Conversation Starters and Practice at Home Activities
The first item is for follow-up after viewing the video “Honoring Others.”
What were the ways that students in the video honored Nadar’s memory? Why do you think they did the things that they did?
Who are the people who are important to our family? How can we show honor to them?
Why is it important to make sure that important people in our lives are honored?
School to Home Resources on Honoring Others
Materials
- Paper and writing utensils
- Board or large paper to make a list “Why I honor…” page
Previewing Activity:
Write the phrase “honor code” where everyone can see.
Explain that an honor code is a set of rules that helps everyone do well, honest deeds to make a school a better place.
An honor code is something people agree to do because they are good people and they want to be with other good people.
Ask students to think about the rules in the classroom that help everyone do good things.
How does following the rules show the world that we honor our classroom and our classmates? How does it show we honor our school?
Activity 1:
Watch video: Honor [3 minutes]
Activity 2:
Discussion questions following the video.
- What character traits did Nader possess?
- What characteristics can you identify in Jake?
- What steps did Nader’s friends take in order to demonstrate honor?
- Do you believe that honoring your family, friends, and others is important? Why or why not?
- How can you honor your family, friends and others in a significant way?
- What have you done in the past or plan to do in the future to honor someone in your life?
Activity 3:
Our Honor Ceremony
Introduction:
In the video, Jake and the other students honored the memory of a friend who had died. Tell students that they don’t have to wait until someone dies to honor them. We can honor people who are living; we can celebrate people who do good things for us and for the community. These people can be everyday heroes.
Direct Instruction:
Introduce the class Honor Ceremony. The class is going to choose someone who works in the school to honor.
This person should be someone who works hard, is always there for the students, does special things for students, and never asks for any kind of reward or recognition.
The class is going to plan a special ceremony, sort of like a party to honor this person.
Guided Exploration (We do):
Ask students to brainstorm a list of people they could honor with a ceremony.
To select the person to be honored, ask students to think about and share their ideas about:
- What is this person’s job?
- What does this person do to help students and others in the school?
- What kind of attitude does this person have? Why should we honor this person?
- How will it make this person feel?
After selecting the person to be honored, ask students to help you plan the ceremony for the person.
- Where will it be held?
- What kind of decorations should we have? Will we serve refreshments?
- Will it be a surprise or should we tell them?
- Should we have special music or should it be quiet?
- Who else should we invite?
Use the big paper to work out the details of the honor ceremony your class will hold.
Independent practice
Tell students that when a ceremony is held, usually people say things about the person being honored or create art work that shows the great things the person does.
On the big paper, collect statements about the person.
Distribute the “Why I honor…” page and ask students to draw a picture of the wonderful things the person does and then write a sentence about why they honor this person.
These pages will be given to the person at the ceremony.
Note to teachers:
Teachers should feel free to design a project that suits their class’s skills. Other ideas might include creating a video of the students speaking about the person, creating a class sculpture, giving open choice of a project to create, etc.
Conclusion
This project will take several days to plan and prepare for, so each day, work on a different aspect of the ceremony. When the planning is done, the conclusion is the ceremony itself!
Vocabulary and Definitions
heroic (adj.): extremely brave or determined; admired by many people.
- The heroic firefighters carried my grandmother from her home as it was burning.
honor (n.): showing respect; giving praise; remembering; the respect that someone or something receives from other people.
- We honor the American flag by putting our hands over our hearts when we recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
memorial (adj.): performing, happening or occurring in order to remind people of someone who died.
- Our family held a memorial service to honor and remember our grandmother when she died.
