MYSELF
lesson 2:
personal foundationS
Lesson Summary
This lesson develops a student's awareness of their personal values and foundations. Students learn that there are four personal foundations that help them to succeed in life: dealing with mistakes, staying curious, handling change and knowing our strengths. Our personal values support our foundations and students will identify and explain which values are most important to them. As students understand their foundations and values, they learn how they can strengthen and grow these foundations, helping them to be a better person, friend and classmate. This lesson connects to Lesson 9: Friendship Foundations.
purpose
Purpose: In this lesson, students develop their understanding of their own personal foundations, including their values, how they stay curious and deal with their mistakes.
Process
Time Needed: 25 to 30 minutes
Activity: Master Builders (5 mins)
Introduction (5 mins)
Activity: What do I value most? (5-10 mins)
Activity: Understanding my foundations (10 mins)
Debrief (5 mins)
Materials & downloads
For this lesson, you will need the following:
Please see the first activity (Master Builders) and decide which materials will be used
Pen or Pencil
Optional: Student workbook / notebook
Activity - MASTER BUILDERS
How it works:
Students work in groups of 3-4 to make a 3D house using only the items provided by the classroom teacher (items may include pieces of paper, cardboard, newspaper, toilet rolls, straws, Jenga blocks etc.). Please ensure the materials are either reused or recycled, to avoid any unnecessary wastage. If using paper or cardboard, students can use pens and pencils to decorate their house by adding doors and windows. Students have only 3 minutes to create their house.
Teacher Script:
Ask students to get into groups of 3-4.
Provide the resources equally amongst the groups.
Give the students the time limit (3 minutes).
Optional: When the time is up, students can leave their houses on their desk and can walk around the classroom and see what other students have made.
Teacher to remind students to be safe and responsible when building their house.
Debrief:
In that activity, to successfully make your house, you needed to have different parts, such as walls and a roof. You may have also built your house on something sturdy, such as your table. In this activity, the table (sturdy base) acted as the foundations for your house. Just like a house, we have lots of different things in our lives that make us successful such as family and friends. What else do you have in your life that supports you being successful?
If part of your house fell apart or didn’t work, how did you respond? How does this link with mistakes and learning in our life?
THE FOUR FOUNDATIONS (5 mins)
Welcome back to Friendship Fitness!
Before we can build a great friendship, we have to know and understand ourselves! This means we understand what we’re good at, what we can work on, and how our actions affect others.
A big part of knowing yourself is noticing our personal foundations. It’s a bit like building a house - to build a strong, sturdy house, we need to have a strong base or foundations.
The four important personal foundations look at how we:
Deal with mistakes - We all make them, but how we respond decides if it becomes a problem or a positive experience.
Stay curious - Being curious means we are excited to learn more about something or someone. If we can be interested and open to learning more about ourselves, this can help us to grow and develop our skills and strengths.
Handle change - There are lots of things we can’t control in life, such as the weather and other people, but we can control how we respond to change.
Know your strengths - Every person has things they are good at (strengths) and things they are working on. When we look to grow the strengths we already have and work to grow new ones, we can be our best and help others to be their best too.
These 4 foundations have a big effect on you, your friendships, and the people around you. When you know yourself and understand your foundations, you can grow yourself — and that makes you a better friend, classmate, and person.
Each of these foundations also links closely with our personal values. A personal value is something is a belief or quality that matters to us and influences our actions and how we treat others.
For example, if honesty is important to you, it can help you to be truthful when you make a mistake.
If you value kindness, it can help you stay curious and listen to other people’s ideas.
We are going to explore our personal values next and think about how those values can help you grow your personal foundations.
Class Reflection (Optional)
Ask the students the following questions:
Which personal foundation do you think is your strongest?
Which one do you think you might need to work on?
Activity: WHAT DO I VALUE MOST? (10 MINS)
Teacher Instructions:
As a class, ask students to come up with a list of 10-15 values and write the words on the board. (Examples include: honesty, kindness, fairness, respect, courage, creativity, teamwork, patience).
Once the list is complete, students write down their top three values.
Next to each value, students can write down a sentence or draw a small picture showing how they live out that value each day with their friends and classmates.
Tips for Success - Teacher Examples:
Kindness – A student may say “I help a friend who’s hurt” and the student draws a picture of themselves helping a friend.
Honesty – I tell the truth even if it’s hard.
3. Once complete, the students can share which values they chose and why with a partner.
Debrief: Our personal values help us to know how we deal with mistakes, stay curious, handle change, and share our strengths. We are going to explore how our personal values connect with our personal foundations.
GRADE 1/2 activity: Growing From Mistakes and Strengths
Step 1: Set Up the Page
Give each student the activity worksheet. The worksheet has 4 boxes:
Mistakes I Learn From
Things I Wonder About
Changes I Can Handle
Things I Am Good At
Explain that in each box, students can draw pictures, write words, or do both.
Step 2: Explain Each Box
Read and explain one box at a time.
Box 1: Mistakes I Learn From
Teacher Script: “Everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes help our brain grow because we learn from them.”
Ask students draw or write a mistake they made and what they learned from it.
Teacher example: “Sometimes I spill my drink. I learned to slow down when I carry it.”
Box 2: Things I Wonder About
Teacher Script: “Curiosity means asking questions and wanting to learn new things.”
Ask students draw or write something they are curious about or something they want to learn.
Exmples students might draw:
space
animals
how volcanoes work
how to build something
Box 3: Changes I Can Handle
Teacher Script: “Sometimes things change. Change might feel tricky at first, but we can learn how to handle it.”
Ask students draw or write a change they handled well.
Examples:
a new seating plan
a new class
trying a new activity
learning something difficult
Box 4: Things I Am Good At
Teacher Script: “Everyone has strengths. Strengths are things we are good at or things that help others.”
Ask students draw or write something they are good at.
Examples:
being kind
helping others
drawing
trying their best
making people laugh
Encourage students to be honest and kind to themselves.
Optional Sharing
Ask for 2–3 volunteers to share one of their boxes with the class.
Remind students: “Everyone learns in different ways, and mistakes help us grow.”
Debrief: Being able to reflect and identify what we are doing well, and where we still have room to grow, is an important way of developing out personal foundations. Self-awareness is a superpower!
GRADE 3/4 activity: understanding my foundations (5 min)
Ask students to fold their piece of paper in half one way, then in half the other way so they have four rectangles. Students then open it and write a title at the top of each box: Mistakes, Curiosity, Change, Strengths.
Students will then write or draw two things in each box:
Something you do well in this area.
Something you want to work on to get even better.
Stretch: Look at the personal values you wrote down earlier, such as kindness or honesty, and see if you can connect your values to what you write down in each box.
Teacher Example to share:
In the Mistakes box I might write: ‘I say sorry quickly’ as my strength, and ‘I can work on staying calm when I spill something’ as something to improve.
If my value is honesty, I could add: ‘I will be honest about my mistakes even when it’s hard because I understand how important it is to be honest and tell the truth.’
When circulating the classroom, you can use the following prompts to encourage student thinking:
“What helps you stay curious when something is new and unfamiliar?”
“How do you handle changes, such as a new class seating plan?”
“What strengths do you bring to your friendships or our class?”
Tips for success:
- Encourage students to honestly reflect, whilst also being kind to themselves and others.
Optional - Class Feedback and Discussion:
Once complete, ask for 2-3 students to share what they wrote or drew for each of the four boxes.
Debrief: Being able to reflect and identify what we are doing well, and where we still have room to grow, is an important way of developing out personal foundations. Self-awareness is a superpower!
Lesson Debrief:
Knowing your values helps you know yourself, and when you know yourself, you can grow yourself. This helps to build strong friendships! When we understand which values are important to us, we can use these as a tool to help strengthen our personal foundations. This makes us a more reflective and resilient person, as well as a better friend and classmate.
