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Fourth Grade
LESSON
Seven
Expressing Ourselves: Honoring Grief & Loss
55 mins
This lesson is currently under review with Nest Educational Advisors. Please check back later for updates.
Lesson Overview
Students will consider the effects of grief and loss on a person’s life and relationships. Students will brainstorm strategies for handling the difficult emotions related to grief and loss, and learn how to support others and themselves through challenging times. Students will learn to express their emotions through a creative project of their choice (art, poetry, songwriting, sculpture, collage).
Lesson Objectives
- Describe the feelings and thoughts associated with grieving.
- Brainstorm strategies to support ourselves and others experiencing grief.
- Explore how resilience helps us cope with grief.
- Express emotions of loss through a creative narration.
Materials
Handouts
quicklinks
how to prepare for this lesson
Talking about grief and loss in early childhood is an important way to help students process their feelings, validate and acknowledge their loss, and offer healing and copy strategies. Students who have not experienced grief and loss may have many questions or worries after the lesson, and it is wise to leave time in the days following to continue to share resources and remind students that you are there to answer any questions that have come up for them.
As this lesson will be covering loss and grief, please include on Slide 18 the name of your school’s Mental Health provider or necessary personnel for students who may want to seek help. Please let your school’s Mental Health provider or necessary personnel know that students will be given their names as safe resources on campus if they need to talk.
Students will be referencing their Feelings Wheel Handouts through this lesson and should have it out and available at the start of the lesson.
At the end of this lesson, students will start working on their personal Resilience Narratives. To start, they will each fill out the Narrative Graphic Organizer Handout in class. There will be time for students to work on this in class and students will also have an additional 15 minutes at the start of the next You Belong Here lesson to complete their projects. If at the end of this lesson, their Narrative Graphic Organizer Handouts are not yet completed, this should be assigned as homework.
Please ensure to pre-check videos before class, as internet policies may vary among schools, to ensure accessibility.
Additional Resources
Online Resources
- Grief defined for adults: https://www.apa.org/topics/grief
- Grief defined for kids: https://www.dougy.org/resource-articles/what-is-grief