MYSELF

lesson 6:

connect and belong

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, students will connect their puzzle pieces with others to see how their individual qualities fit together to create a bigger picture, fostering this sense of belonging. Students will explore the idea that everyone has individual strengths and that these strengths can support not just their own success, but the success and growth of others. Contributing our strengths to support others, and not just ourselves, deepens connection and fosters a true sense of belonging both at class and wider community levels.

Purpose

Purpose: In this lesson, students develop their sense of belonging and connectedness by looking beyond themselves. Students focus on how they can use their strengths to support others and contribute to their class and community.

Process

Time Needed:  25 to 30 minutes

  1. Activity: Strength Switch (5 mins)

  2. Intro: (2 mins)

  3. Activity: Piece by Piece (10-15 mins)

  4. Activity: Strengths in Action Scenario Stations (10 mins)

  5. Debrief and Reflection (5 mins)

Materials & downloads

For this lesson, you will need the following: 

  • Strength In You Puzzle Piece Worksheet (used in Lesson 5)

  • 6 pieces of Butcher’s paper

  • Plain Paper

  • Coloured pens or pencils

  • Optional: Student workbook / notebook

Activity - strength switch (5 mins)

How it works:

  1. Students stand in a large circle facing towards the centre of the circle. 

  2. The teacher chooses one student to stand in the middle of the circle. 

  3. The student in the middle says the sentence “Switch places if you’re good at…” and then they add their strength.

    Example: “Switch places if you’re good at making people laugh”.

    Other examples may include: 

    • Helping someone learn

    • Solving problems 

    • Listening to others

    • Coming up with creative ideas

  4. All students that share that strength step into the circle. The first student to step in quickly switches places with the person in the middle. The student in the middle stands in the place of the student who stepped forward first (and who is now in the middle).

    If no students step forward, the student in the middle shares another strength. 

  5. Continue for several rounds so different strengths are highlighted and every student has switched places.

Debrief:

We quickly noticed in this activity that we all have lots of different strengths, as well as having some strengths in common with others. 

This activity showed us that everyone brings something special to our class.
These unique strengths don’t just make us interesting! They help us work together, support each other, and make our class stronger as a team.

intro (2 mins)

In the last lesson, we explored how we all have unique strengths and skills. In this lesson, we are going to see how our individual strengths and skills work together to support the people around us. We know that our strengths help us to be successful - whether that is doing well in class, being a good friend or playing well on a sports team. We want to learn that our strengths help more than just us to be successful - they help the people around us too! So in this lesson, we want to think beyond ourselves. We want to think of how we can use our strengths to help the people around us succeed. For us to be our best, we have to help the people around us be their best too!

Activity: piece by piece (10-15 mins)

Teacher Instructions:

Using the puzzle pieces completed in the previous lesson (A Piece of the Puzzle) come together as a class and assemble the puzzle pieces together. Give students different prompts so that they are able to connect their puzzle piece with as many other students and their pieces as possible. This can be completed as follows:

  • Find one person to connect your puzzle piece with. Share with the other person what you wrote or drew. Listen to the other person share about their puzzle piece. 

  • Now as a pair, find another pair and connect your pieces to theirs and share what each person wrote or drew. Listen to other people as they  share about their puzzle pieces. 

  • Now, as a group of 4, find another group of 4, connect your pieces to theirs and share what each person wrote or drew. Listen to all members of the group. 

  • Repeat this until the whole class is connected.

After completing several rounds, the students bring their puzzle pieces to a large board, or piece of butcher’s paper. One at a time, students add their piece, ensuring it is connected with the surrounding pieces. 

Once the whole class puzzle is complete, use the following prompts to have a class discussion:

  • Each piece is completely different but fits together to make something complete - why is this important?

  • How would our class (or community) be different if we did not have everyone’s unique contributions?

Debrief:
We can all be proud of our own strengths and uniqueness and realise that when we connected all of our pieces together, we realised that the picture wasn’t complete without having every single piece. This is just like our class: our differences fit together to make us stronger and help us support one another. When we focus on how we can use our strengths to positively contribute to others, we experience feeling connected to others.

activity: strengths in action scenario stations (10 mins)

Teacher Instructions:

Create 4-5 stations around the room with simple scenarios written in the centre of a large piece of paper such as butcher’s paper. 

Example Scenarios:

  1. A classmate is nervous about speaking in assembly.

  2. The library is messy after break time.

  3. A younger student is new and doesn’t know the playground rules.

  4. A student in your class has been left out of a game at lunch time. 

  5. Your school’s sports team lost their Grand Final match.

  1. Divide students into 4-5 groups and send each group to a scenario.

  2. Give students 1-2 minutes to write their answers to the following questions:

  1. Which of your strengths could help here?

  2. What action could you take?

3. Once the time is up, ask students to rotate to the next scenario. Repeat until the students have completed each station.

Optional: Ask the students to remain standing at their final station. Ask each group to share what their scenario is and to summarise the strengths and ideas written down. 

Debrief:
At each station we looked at different situations, such as helping someone who is nervous or cleaning a messy space, and thought about how our unique abilities could make a positive difference. When we look and think beyond ourselves and what we can gain, and instead see our strengths as something we can contribute and give to those around us, we are able to connect with others.

Lesson Debrief:

We feel connected to others and have a strong sense of belonging when we share our strengths by helping and serving others. We understand that everyone has strengths they can use to help another person. 

Remember: Your strengths aren’t just for you! They’re powerful tools you can use every day, both in and outside of the classroom! Our class, school and community is stronger when we all use our strengths to help the people around us.

Thank you!!

for spending time building fitter friendships