Time: 1 hour
Space: Carpet/ Desks
Grade: 3-5

Description: This lesson is designed to help students cope with their feelings and emotions surrounding the topic of death through literature, expressive arts, and communication. We want students to develop individual strategies for coping with death themselves, or strategies to help others cope with death in a meaningful way.

Objectives: At some point in the students’ lives they will be able to:
1. Individually cope effectively with death by using strategies like drawing, painting, reading, and communicating.
2. Demonstrate an increased sensitivity to the grief of others by comforting peers and adults in their time of need.
3. Teach others how to cope and express their grief by explaining or showing them effective strategies that can be used to deal with death.

Academic Standards:
Subject Area: Social Science Analysis
Standard: Identify, research and clarify an event, issue, problem, or phenomenon of significance to society.
Benchmark: Identify an issue or problem that can be studied.

Preparation: Read the book Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs by Tomie DePaola . This book addresses the topic of death and will stimulate conversation, and students’ minds. The teacher should create a comfortable safe environment where students can express themselves through books, paints, markers, paper, journals, collages and additional reading materials. Gather glue, scissors, collage materials, and paints.

Lesson Introduction (15 minutes):
1. Sit in a circle and express ideas about death, and feelings about death.
2. Read the story- ask how characters felt?

Sharing objectives (5 minutes):
1. Let children know what is coming.
2. Kids will take this lesson in different directions so go with the flow of the conversation (emergent).

Learning Activities (30 minutes):
1. Talk about the strategies used in the book as well as additional strategies that students suggest while brainstorming at circle.
2. Have students get into small groups to talk about their feelings, reactions, questions, and emotions regarding the book, or experience with death in their lives. This will allow students to use each other as resources to find different coping strategies.
3. Have centers set-up around the classroom that allow students to express in multiple ways their thoughts, feelings, and concerns. The centers will consist of painting, creating collages, writing/journaling, and reading. Soothing music will be played in the classroom while the students learn and create coping strategies. During this time the teacher will be helping the students express their feelings and thoughts through multiple forms. The teacher will be visiting each center and engaging in a conversation with children about their mode of expression.
4. Extensions: Create a book that contains all the strategies discussed, and any additional strategies that students didn’t feel comfortable sharing in front of the group.
a. Students can bring to class something that helps them explain their strategy for helping others and/or individually coping with death.
b. Making a personalized quilt by drawing or painting pictures that show a sense of empathy, and sending it to national tragedy to comfort those in need (Quilt-making).

Closure (10minutes): Gather back at the carpet and ask for student volunteers to share and discuss strategies that were effective for them.

Ongoing Assessment: Most of the assessment will be in the form of observation of students over the whole year. The teacher should watch for students’ ability to demonstrate an increased sensitivity and reception to the grief of their peers and adults by showing compassion and suggesting coping strategies. The immediate assessment of listening to students’ share their strategies at circle during closing will allow the teacher to evaluate how his/her students did and how well the teacher conveyed the lesson objectives.

Teacher Self – Reflection: The elements of this lesson that the teacher should anticipate being particularly challenging are students breakdowns, true expression of students’ emotions, ridiculing of others, lack of seriousness when talking about death, and fielding sensitive or challenging student questions. To prevent these challenges the teacher should be supportive and responsive to the needs of the students. The teacher should also create a comforting and safe forum for students to share their emotions and strategies for coping with grief.