5 Important Character Education Topics to Teach

In elementary, students build on their relationships with their peers and others around them. Children learn from watching adults and modeling their behaviors. Teaching kids about morals and principles isn’t just a job left for parents alone. Teachers have a large impact on kids’ character development as well. Teaching character education doesn’t have to take a lot of time or be a difficult topic to teach.

There are 5 topics to focus on when teaching character education to your class. In this post, I will share with you what my students learn and some resources that are my favorite for each topic.

Topics to teach that support character education

Kindness
Sharing
Goal Setting
Teamwork
Helping Others

1. Kindness

Kindness is one of the first topics that I discuss when we start our character education unit. I like to focus on the importance of treating everyone in the class with respect and showing more kindness than necessary.

One activity that I like to have students do is a Kindness Bingo game. The students work on completing 5 acts of kindness to help promote kindness in the classroom.

2. Sharing

In the lower elementary grades, sharing is a big life skill students have to continuously work on. Sharing is a great character education skill to work on because it promotes selflessness and shows students that we can trust our friends and those around us when it may be hard to share things we love.

teaching character education sharing picture

A fun way to teach kids to share is by playing games that promote taking turns. Another way you can have students practice taking turns is by sharing books or toys in the classroom.

3. Goal Setting

Goal setting probably didn’t come to mind when you thought of character education. But, I am a big believer that teaching students to set goals and work on ways to achieve them is a huge part of showing kids how to build good character.

An easy way to have students set goals is by having them brainstorm as a class fun things that they want to accomplish this year. I first like to pick a book that shows a character working towards a goal. There are a ton of great ones out there. I like to tell my students that goals can be big or small and that some goals could be to learn a new skill, make all A’s, or read a chapter in a book every night before bed. No matter what their goal is, it’s important to help them stick with it and not give up on their dreams.

4. Teamwork

Another character trait that I like my students to learn about at the beginning of the year is teamwork. Throughout the year kids will have to work together on various projects. They must learn to listen and respect one another when working together. ‘

One way I teach teamwork is by having kids practice being good team members by playing board games. Teaching teamwork doesn’t always have to be complicated. Sometimes kids are only siblings or are used to arguing with a brother or sister when they play games at home. Setting out specific times to have kids play games and looking for cues to help navigate and guide your class’s social skill development is a simple way to help foster such an important skill.

Before my class beings working or playing games with a partner, I discuss with them the 3 C’s of teamwork. Communication, cooperation, and courage. We talk about why each word is important and how they connect to teamwork, then I have them fill out a simple worksheet to help them remember the 3 C’s. When our class is needing a refresher, we revisit the worksheet and review the words.

5. Helping Others

One of the last character traits I teach my kids is the importance of helping others. There are a ton of great books that do a great job at teaching this. I think it is important to foster this skill in kids because it helps students cultivate a positive environment when they know their friends care and want to help.

Book Ideas:

Students can be scared to ask adults for help at times, so giving students the power to help their peers is a great tool for them to have. One activity that I have my class do is brainstorm ways they can help out in class. Brainstorming, writing, and drawing down ideas is a great way to get students thinking about the topic. Once students think of different ways to help out, I like to challenge them to take action and complete one of the things they talked about. This is a great opportunity to reward and praise students who sometimes need some extra motivation.

More Character Education Activities for Kids

I hope you have found some ideas you can use as you plan for teaching character education to your kids. All of the activities in this post are part of my Character Education Activities unit. If you are looking for digital activities that your students can work on at home or in a social studies center, check out my Character Education and Character Traits for Google Slides Bundle!