If I wanted to start teaching forgiveness in my first-grade classroom, what kind of resources do you have for this?
First, thank you for considering giving your first graders access to the amazing benefits of forgiveness education. To demonstrate to you that teaching forgiveness education is beneficial for both your students and you, please read the 3-page Why Forgiveness Education? on our website.
Starting a forgiveness education program either in your classroom or throughout your school is relatively simple since we provide all the materials. We have Curriculum Guides available for grades Pre-K through 12th Grade. The curriculum guides are comprehensive (most over 100 pages) making them easy for classroom teachers to use.
The guides are available in two formats–the standard version for public schools and the Christian version that includes supplemental information tying the lessons into Christian principles and values. Here is a preview of an actual curriculum guide for you to review–the introduction and first three lessons of the 1st Grade Curriculum Guide (Standard Version) and the 1st Grade Curriculum Guide (Christian Version).
The guides focus on Dr. Seuss books in the early grades and on other age-appropriate books, DVDs and websites for older students. Through stories, children learn about the five moral qualities most important to forgiving another person–inherent worth, moral love, kindness, respect and generosity.
In the Grade One Curriculum Guide, for example, Dr. Seuss’ book “Horton Hears a Who” is the centerpiece of all of the materials. Horton was chosen because of his oft repeated wisdom: “A person is a person no matter how small.” This idea captures well the concept of inherent worth.
For each grade level the curriculum gets progressively more challenging so that by the twelfth grade the students are encouraged, if they so choose, to bring the principles of forgiveness to their community outside of school. See Curriculum Guides Basic Description 5-2014 for details.
Each grade level has a number of children’s books and related materials suggested for use with the teacher guide. You may obtain the books yourself, or we have available, and will provide to you at no cost, two-page to six-page book summaries with each guide you purchase.
Finally, we highly recommend a two-hour teacher training program we have developed for all instructors who will be providing forgiveness education. We can provide that training on site, through Skype, or through audio CD. Teachers can listen to the CD as a group (preferred method) or can access it whenever they wish. Contact us for details at director@internationalforgiveness.com.
You can order complete sets of the curriculum guides (book summaries included) as well as the Instructional CD in our website Store. Deciding to teach forgiveness education to your first graders would be a smart investment.
