Character Strengths Matching Card Game Additional Activities

Transcription

1 Character Strengths Matching Card Game Additional Activities Suitable for All Ages Picturing Your Strengths Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Paper, Drawing Supplies, Tape, Sticky Notes Hand out one character strength card per student. Have students create an illustration different from the one pictured on the Character Strength Symbol Wall Poster. Remind them they can t use words to represent their character strength. Tape up the students illustrations around the classroom. Pass out three sticky notes to each student. Invite students to take a Gallery Walk around the room to see if they can guess what character strength is illustrated. Have students use their sticky notes to post their guesses next to the illustration. Strength Spotting A Class Period Character Strengths Matching Card Game Throughout the day, when you see a student demonstrating a strength, place the corresponding character strength card from the deck on the corner of the student s desk. At the end of the designated time/class, have students reflect on their strengths that were spotted and how they used each strength throughout class. This activity will help ensure you are noticing the strengths of all your students. BONUS: After having students reflect on their own strengths, challenge your students to give away their strengths cards by noticing the strengths in others during the next time period/class. At the end of the time period, have students share how it felt to notice strengths and be noticed for their strengths by peers.

2 Swap Shop Trade min Hand out one character strength card per student. Using the Character Strength Symbols Wall Poster, have students study the definition of their character strength. After understanding and memorizing the definition of their character strength, have students pair up with a student. Student #1 will give an example of how to use their character strength with friends. Student #2 will give an example of how to use their character strength with friends. Student will trade cards and move on to find a new partner. Students will repeat steps as time allows. Character Strength Charades min Character Strengths Matching Card Game Ask the group for a volunteer. Have the volunteer draw a card from the Character Strengths Matching Card Game. Then ask the volunteer to silently act out the character strength as the rest of the class guesses what the strength could be. Once the class guesses the correct character strength, have the class spot strengths in the volunteer before he sits down. Repeat as time allows. Where s My Match? Based on the group size, pass out an even number of cards and their matches to the class. Each person within the group should have one character strength card. Students will need to find their matching card within the group. Once students have found the person with their matching card, each pair will generate examples of how to demonstrate this strength. Pairs will share their examples with the class. Take What You Need Class Period Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Space to Lay out 24 Character Strengths Cards Find a student-accessible place to lay out an individual card for each character strength, for a total of 24 character strength cards face up. Explain to students that everyone has all 24 character strengths within them. At times, we need to call on certain strengths to complete a task or activity. Invite students throughout the day to select a strength they need to use the most to be successful. At the end of the day or class period, ask students to reflect on how taking the strength they needed helped them focus on using the strength to accomplish the task at hand.

3 Suitable for Grades Kindergarten 4 th Quiz, Quiz, Trade - Lower Grades min Hand out one character strength card per student. Using the Character Strength Symbols Wall Poster, have students study the definition of their character strength. After understanding and memorizing the definition of their character strength, have students pair up with other students. Students will quiz each other on their character strength. Student #1 will ask, How would you define (character strength on student #1 s card)? Student #2 will give his/her answer. After affirming Student #2 s correct answer or teaching Student #2 the correct definition, Student #1 will define Student #2 s character strength card. Student #2 will affirm the correct answer or teach the correct definition. Students will trade cards and find a new partner. Repeat steps as time allows. Concentration Are You Ready? Groups of min Character Strengths Matching Card Game This is an extension of the game included in your card game box. Lay out Character Strengths Matching Card Game strengths cards face down on the floor in a grid formation. Each student/team will flip over a card and then attempt to find the match on the second card flipped. If the two cards flipped do not match, both cards will be placed back face down and the next student/team will take a turn. If the two cards flipped do match, student/team will give an example of how they can use the character strength within the classroom. After giving an example, the student/team will take the two matched cards, earn a point, and the next student/team will take a turn. Each team will take turns until zero matches remain. The student/ team with the most points at the end will be declared Character Strengths Champion! Character Strength Read Aloud min, Read Aloud Book Pass on character strength card to students from the Character Strengths Matching Card Game. Have students reference the Character Strength Symbols Wall Poster to help them understand the character strength. Set the purpose for reading by telling them to spot their assigned character strength throughout the book. At the end of the read aloud, have students cite examples of how a character displayed the character strength within the book.

4 We Know Our Strengths! Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Paper, Drawing Supplies, Tape, Sticky Notes Hand out one character strength card per student. Have students create an illustration different from the Character Strength Symbol Wall Poster to represent their character strength. Student may use words and images to define their assigned character strength. Have them include examples of how to demonstrate the strength. When finished, hang illustrations to form a class-created character strengths wall chart. Gratitude Guessing min Character Strengths Matching Card Game Choose a volunteer who will be the guesser. Without looking, have the volunteer pull out a character strength card from the Character Strengths Matching Card Game. Show the rest of the class the character strength without the volunteer seeing the character strength. Tell the rest of the class they will be participating in a character strengths gratitude guessing game. In this game, students will thank the volunteer for actions the volunteer displayed that demonstrate the character strength. For example, if the volunteer pulled kindness, another student could say, Thank you for being nice to me when I was sad. After each statement of gratitude, have the volunteer guess what character strength was pulled. Have students continue to thank the volunteer until the volunteer correctly answers. Once the volunteer correctly answers, have the volunteer share how it felt to be thanked. Repeat with a new volunteer as time allows.

5 Suitable for Grades 4th and Up Quiz, Quiz, Trade - Upper Grades min Hand out one character strength card per student. Using the Thriving Learning Communities resources have students create their own definition of the character strength. Have students pair up with other students. Students will quiz each other on their character strength. Student #1 will ask, How would you define (character strength on student #1 s card)? Student #2 will give his/her answer. After affirming Student #2 s correct answer or teaching Student #2 the correct definition, Student #1 will define Student #2 s character strength card. Student #2 will affirm the correct answer or teach the correct definition. Students will trade cards and find a new partner. Repeat steps as time allows. Strength Charades in Pairs! Based on the group size, pass out an even number of cards and their matches to the class. Each person within the group should have one character strength card. Students will need to find their matching card within the group. Once students have found the person with their matching card, each pair will plan how to silently act out the character strength. In front of the class, each pair will act out the strength and the class will guess the character strength. Picturing Your Strengths Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Paper, Drawing Supplies, Tape, Sticky Notes Hand out one character strength card per student. Have students create an illustration different from the Character Strength Symbol Wall Poster and without words to represent their character strength card. Tape up the students illustrations around the classroom. Pass out three sticky notes to each student. Invite students to take a Gallery Walk around the room to see if they can guess what character strength is illustrated. Have students use their sticky notes to post their guesses next to the illustration.

6 Character Strengths Chaos min Chaos! Throw all the cards down in a designated space. Each student will secretly draw a card. After drawing a card, students will pair up and act out their character strength while the other partner guesses. After both partners have a chance to guess and act out their character strength, students will throw their card back down in to the designated space and choose a new card and a new partner. How Does It All Connect? Two Groups of 4 6 students Give each group one set of character strengths cards. Have students lay out all the cards and think about how the character strengths are connected. Based on the connections, have student arrange cards into groups. Tell students they can organize the cards into as many or as few groups as they would like, but they must be prepared to explain the connections. Once the group has finished categorizing and organizing the Character Strengths Matching Card Game cards, have students explain their rationale to the other group. After both groups share their rationale, have them compare how their categorization is similar and different. Heads Up Character Strengths Edition! or Small Groups min Inspired by the hit show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show have students play Heads Up using the Character Strengths Matching Card Game. Have one student volunteer to be the guesser. Without looking, the volunteer will place the character strength card on his forehead, strength facing out. Without naming the character strength, have the rest of the class give examples of the strength. Continue generating examples of how to demonstrate this character strength until the volunteer is correct. To raise the intensity, split the group into two groups and see how many character strengths each group can guess in one minute.

7 Spot Strengths in Characters min Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Sticky Notes, (optional) List of books/stories students have read throughout the year Pass a sticky note and one character strength card out to each student. Using their character strength card, have students think of a character from a book or short story they have read that demonstrates the character strength. On the back of the sticky note, have students write their assigned character strength. On the front of the sticky note, have students write a description of how the character demonstrates that strength, without using the character strength name. Have students pair up to read each other s description and guess what character strength is being described. As time allows, have students switch partners and read new descriptions. A Party Full of Character Strengths min Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Tape Without students seeing the character strength, tape a character strength card to each student s back. Tell students they will be participating in a character strengths gratitude party. In this party, students will thank each other for actions they displayed that demonstrate the character strength. For example, if a student has kindness taped to her back, another student could say, Thank you for being nice to me when I was sad. During allotted time, students will thank each other based on the character strength. At the end of the party time, have students share how they felt to be thanked and guess what strength is taped to their back. Character Strengths for Humanity 4 Students or Small Groups min Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Index Cards Pass each student a sticky note. On an index card, have each student write a place within the school and a time within the school day (i.e. the lunch room at dismissal). After each student writes a place and a time, collect all the index cards. Then pass out the entire deck of character strengths cards evenly between the groups. Next, shuffle the index cards and have a student or group #1 randomly pick a location and time. The other three students/groups will have to choose one of the character strengths from their hand and write on a slip of paper about how they could demonstrate the strength in the given location and time. Student or group #1 will choose the strongest answer. The student/group who s answer was chosen will be the winner of the round. The first group to have their answer chosen five times is the winner.

8 In Your Own Words min Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Index Cards, Writing Utensils Based on the group size, pass out an even number of cards and their matches to the class. Each person within the group should have one character strength card. Have students find their matching card within the group. Once students have found their partner with their matching card, pass out paper and writing utensils to each group. Have each group create a definition for their assigned character strength. When students are finished, have them present their definitions to the class. Hang up student created definitions to create their own character strengths wall poster. Current Events Character Strengths Gallery Walk Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Current Event Articles (online or printed), Sticky Notes Using articles students have found or ones you selected, have students identify what character strengths are reflected within the current event. Have students focus on using their strength of perspective to seek to understand the different sides of the story. In small groups, have students brainstorm on a sticky note which strengths could be dialed up and used within the current event to resolve or improve the situation. Finally, have students post their current event and their sticky notes around the room and have the class gallery walk through Strengths in Current Events. Four Corners Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Tape, Index Cards Pass out one index card to each student. On the index card, have students name a time and place within the school day (i.e. the lunchroom at dismissal). Collect the index cards from the students. Randomly choose four strengths from the card deck and place one in each corner. Pull out an index card and read it to students. Have the student choose between the four corners as to what strength they would use in the situation. Once students choose a corner, have them chat in their groups as to why they chose this strength over the others. Have one representative from each corner share out why they chose the strength. Change corner character strengths cards and index card situations as appropriate.

9 Character Strengths Pictionary min Character Strengths Matching Card Game, Dry-Erase Board or Chart Paper, Markers Divide the group in to two groups. Have the first group assign a volunteer. That volunteer will come to the board/chart paper. The volunteer, now the illustrator, will randomly draw one card from the Character Strengths Matching Card Game. The illustrator will have one minute to silently draw a picture that gets the team to guess. If the illustrator s team can guess the strength before one minute is up, they receive a point. The illustrator s team can also get an additional point if they can give an example of how someone on the other team recently used the strength. If the illustrator s team cannot guess the character strength, the other team will have the opportunity to guess the character strength to receive a point. Repeat the process, taking turns with each team, until a team reaches 10 points or as time allows. A special thanks to the Advisory Champions from Cincinnati Public Schools for helping to generate these ideas!