Bennington Public Schools

This unit will be taught in the first quarter. This unit is made up of 4 lessons. 

Click here to download a PDF of an overview of this unit. This handout includes what your child is learning and ways you can practice at home.

Lesson: Strong Emotions

In this lesson, students will learn that it’s possible to anticipate recurring situations that cause them to feel strong emotions so they can plan ways to manage those emotions in the future.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a recurring situation in your life that typically causes you to feel a strong emotion, like anger or frustration. Ask your child to tell you about similar situations in their life.

Lesson: What is Stress?

In this lesson, students will identify signs of stress, situations that can cause them to feel stress, and strategies they can use to manage feelings of stress.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what their body feels like when they’re stressed and what things cause them to feel stress. Share your own experiences with stress and what you do to manage it.

Lesson: Planning for Change

In this lesson, students will practice breaking down situations that feel big and unmanageable into smaller, more manageable pieces. They will also practice identifying a small change someone could make to manage their strong emotions the next time a situation occurs.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a recurring situation in your life that typically causes you to feel a strong emotion, like stress or anger. Ask your child what you can change to make the situation better, and why they would suggest that change.

Lesson: What Can I Change?

In this lesson, students will practice identifying things that a person can or can’t change in a recurring situation that causes them to feel a strong emotion. Then they will focus on the things that can be changed to recommend something the person could think or do differently to manage their emotions in the future.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child if there’s anything coming up at school that makes them feel a strong emotion, like nervous, frustrated, or stressed. Ask them what they could think or do differently to make the situation easier to handle

This unit will be taught in the second quarter. This unit is made up of 3 lessons. 

Lesson 1: Ways to Stay Safe

Your child is learning to:

• Apply the Ways to Stay Safe in response to scenarios

Lesson 2: The Always Ask First Rule

Your child is learning to:

• Identify how to apply the Always Ask First Rule in response to scenarios
• Identify Ways to Stay Safe in response to scenarios

Lesson 3: Safe and Unsafe Touches

Your child is learning about the importance of respecting others' personal space. Some examples to be discussed at home include not hitting, kicking, pushing, etc.

This unit will be taught in the second quarter. This unit is made up of 4 lessons. 

Click here to download a PDF of an overview of this unit. This handout includes what your child is learning and ways you can practice at home.

Lesson: Empathy in the Community

In this lesson, students will describe how empathy can help someone identify and solve a problem in their community.

You Can Try This at Home

Point out something that has changed for the better in your neighborhood recently. Ask your child why they think that change is helpful. Point out how empathy might have helped someone decide to make that change.

Lesson: What’s the Problem?

In this lesson, students will use empathy to identify problems in their school community and think about how these problems might affect other people. This is an important first step toward making positive change in the community.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what problems they see in your neighborhood that affect other people. Point out how empathy helped them notice those problems.

Lesson: A Different Point of View

In this lesson, students will practice building empathy for different groups affected by a community problem. Learning more about each group’s point of view will help them find solutions that can work better for everyone.

You Can Try This at Home

With your child, think about a problem in your community and make a list together of what you could do to learn more about someone else’s point of view. If possible, try out one of your strategies.

Lesson: Community Solutions

In this lesson, students will evaluate possible solutions to a community problem by thinking about the points of view of the people who are affected by the problem.

You Can Try This at Home

Point out a problem in your neighborhood that affects other people. With your child, make a list of possible solutions to the problem. Ask your child how different groups in the community might feel about each solution

This unit will be taught in the third quarter. This unit is made up of 4 lessons.

Click here to download a PDF of an overview of this unit. This handout includes what your child is learning and ways you can practice at home.
 

Lesson: The Right Goal for Me

In this lesson, students will learn how to set a goal that's right for them. A goal that's right for someone is specific, challenging, doable, and motivating.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what their goal is and how they know it’s right for them. Encourage them to describe why it’s motivating to them. Talk to your child about a goal you reached in the past and why you chose that goal.

Lesson: My Plan

In this lesson, students will learn how to make an effective plan to reach a goal.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child about their plan to reach their goal. What will they do? What will they need? Talk to them about how you can support them as they work toward their goal.

Lesson: Changing My Plan

In this lesson, students will learn how to evaluate their progress toward a goal and change their plan accordingly.

You Can Try This at Home

Talk to your child about the progress they’ve made toward their goal. Ask them if they’ve run into any roadblocks, and offer to help them think about how to keep moving forward.

Lesson: Time to Reflect

In this lesson, students will learn how to reflect on their experience working toward a goal.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child to tell you about their goal-setting journey, including what worked, what didn’t work, and what they could do next time. Tell your child about a goal that you set and worked toward. What worked, what didn’t work, and what did you learn

This unit will be taught in the third quarter. This unit is made up of 5 lessons.

Click here to download a PDF of an overview of this unit. This handout includes what your child is learning and ways you can practice at home.
 

Lesson: Beginning to STEP

In this lesson, students will learn how to begin to solve an interpersonal problem. This includes finding a way to feel calm, saying the problem respectfully, and deciding whether an adult’s help is needed.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what kind of interpersonal problems they can solve on their own, and when they might need an adult’s help.

Lesson: When? Where? Who?

In this lesson, students will consider when, where, and with whom it would be best to work on an interpersonal problem.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child why it’s important to think about when, where, and with whom it would be best to work on an interpersonal problem.

Lesson: Solutions Web

In this lesson, students will evaluate solutions to an interpersonal problem by thinking about the problem from each person’s point of view.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a simple interpersonal problem that you’ve experienced and describe each person’s point of view about the problem. Ask them to help you think of solutions and predict the possible outcomes of each solution.

Lesson: Let’s Reflect

In this lesson, students will reflect on whether a solution to an interpersonal problem worked for everyone involved.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child how they can know when they’ve found a good solution to an interpersonal problem.

Lesson: Putting It All Together

In this lesson, students will use the STEP process they learned in this unit to solve an interpersonal problem. STEP stands for S: Say the problem, T: Think of solutions, E: Explore the outcomes, and P: Pick a solution.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child to tell you about the STEP process and give an example of what someone would do in each part of the process

This unit will be taught in the first and fourth quarter. This unit is made up of 4 lessons. 

Lesson: Recognizing Bullying

Your child is learning to:

• Understand bullying is different from conflict
• Recognize and identify different types of bullying behaviors
• Understand you can refuse bullying in different ways
• Demonstrate assertively reporting and refusing bullying

Lesson: Reporting Bullying

Your child is learning to:

• Define "bystander"
• Identify ways bystanders can help stop bullying
• Identify different ways bystanders can support someone being bullied

 Lesson: Refusing Bullying

Your child is learning to:

• Understand how bystanders can be part of the bullying problem
• Understand that helping stop bullying is the right thing to do
• Decide on and practice positive bystander responses to bullying

Lesson: Bystander Power

Your child is learning to:

• Recognize and identify different ways of cyber bullying
• Understand that cyber bullying can be even more harmful than other types of bullying
• Demonstrate ways to support and/or stand up for a person being cyber bullied