What Does Character Education Look Like for Elementary Students in Grades 3-5?

For children aged 8-10, character education becomes increasingly critical as they navigate more complex social dynamics, develop a stronger sense of self, and begin to grapple with abstract ethical concepts. At this age, peers exert a greater influence and children encounter situations requiring more independent moral reasoning. Character education helps them internalize values like fairness, integrity, perseverance, and citizenship, empowering them to make responsible choices, resolve conflicts constructively, and contribute positively to their school and community.

Tips: 
Teachers can foster character development in several ways. Encourage class discussions about real-life dilemmas or ethical scenarios from stories, allowing students to explore different perspectives and consequences. Implement cooperative learning activities that require teamwork, communication, and mutual respect. Service-learning projects, where students identify community needs and work together to address them are also excellent for building empathy and a sense of responsibility. Finally, consistently model desired character traits and create a classroom environment where all students feel safe, valued, and encouraged to practice ethical behavior.

Suggested Lesson Plans

Recommended Units of Study

• Exploring the Six Core Values
  Examine the core values held by the Medal of Honor Recipients through a combination of hands-on small and whole group activities that dive into Courage, Sacrifice, Integrity, Commitment, Patriotism, and Citizenship.

• Honoring Citizen Heroes
  Students work collaboratively to analyze Citizen Honors nominations, debate who should be awarded, and defend their selection with reasoning and evidence.

• Everyday People Who Serve Others
  Help students identify how individuals in the community are good citizens and how they can display citizenship through their everyday service, as well.

• Being Responsible
  A lesson from Overcoming Obstacles explores ideas and concepts to develop clear communication and respect.  

• Integrity
  Students will understand the importance of responsibility, dependability, and integrity, including the concept of consequences for decisions and choices.

• Perseverance and Personal Best
  Students will explore the meaning of perseverance and the necessity to make and set goals.

• Good Citizenship
  Help students become identify and practice the behaviors of a “Good Digital Citizen.” 

• Character Counts: Caring
  Students come to understand that caring — including the virtues of compassion, kindness, benevolence, altruism, charity, generosity, and sharing — is the heart of ethics.

• Character Counts: Responsibility
  

   Using historical and literary figures to model individual responsibility, students examine the consequences of  accountability.  

• Growing Integrity
  Help students gain an understanding of integrity through reading Demi's The Empty Pot, and participating in a whole group activity and individual project based on authentic role models in the community. 

• Medal of Honor Infographic
  Students work collaboratively to research and create an infographic based on a Medal of Honor Recipient.   

• Character Counts: Respect
  Learn how managing conflict can become a win-win situation when respect is exercised by all involved. 

• Character Counts: Good Citizenship
  Through a series of short and easy-to-implement classroom activities, students explain and illustrate the roles they can fulfill in the communities to which they belong.

• Talking Trees
  Collection of teaching resources including presentations, videos and classroom activities, highlighting major character traits, such as empathy, honesty, respect, and responsibility.

• Leadworthy Character Education Grade 3
  From Capturing Kids Hearts, is grade-level specific, progressive, and easy to use suite of lessons that can become a monthly focus on specific character traits. 
  

• Leadworthy Character Education, Grade 4
  From Capturing Kids Hearts, the progressive curriculum focuses on nine initial character traits to support the development of leadership skills in young children.

• Leadworthy Character Education, Grade 5
  The Award-winning monthly character education program provides an structured curriculum through all elementary grades.  
  

Multimedia Resources

Teacher References 

• Understanding the Medal of Honor
  Introduce your students to the Medal of Honor, using video and discussion elements that helps them better understand the Medal of Honor and the values it embodies.
• Pure Determination
  Develop a clearer understanding of the meaning of commitment and  the connection between effort and commitment, based on the role model Wilma Rudolph.
• Youth Engaged in Service
  A PBS Classroom Close-Up videoclip showing how service learning can be incorporated across the curriculum. 
• Generosity: Pass It On  
  A brief example of children making a difference through charitable actions, from The Foundation for a Better Life.
• Kindness: Pass It On
  Scenarios of simple acts of kindness to inspire conversations and launch learning.
• Honesty: Pass It On
  Provides an example for students to contemplate how honesty impacts everyday decisions we make.  

• What is Empathy

  Presentation from Talking Trees that helps children learn why empathy is important to build positive relationships.

• What is Honest
  Presentation from Talking Trees that explores several aspects of what honesty means through scenarios and age-appropriate situations.

• What is Responsibility
  Presentation from Talking Trees that helps children understand what responsibility looks like in everyday life.

• What is Respect
  Presentation from Talking Trees focusing on how to show respect for people, places and things. 

• For Crown or Colony
  Online interactive from Mission U.S. challenges students to apply personal values and priorities within the historical context of taking sides during the American Revolution.

• Evidence-Based Character Education Programs, an article from Positive Action for teacher reference.

• What is Character Education in Schools? from Navigate360
  This article provides a good overview of the benefits of character education, including shaping ethical values, promoting social-emotional skills, developing resilience, and fostering civic responsibility. 

• The Importance of Character Education in Elementary School from graduateprogram.org:
  This resource emphasizes how character education prepares students to become responsible, compassionate citizens and contributes to academic success, highlighting the "Six Pillars of Character." 

• How to Teach Elementary Students Character in the Classroom and Online from Edutopia: This article offers practical tips for teachers, such as discussing student expectations, inviting role models, using role-play, and explicitly practicing character traits. 

• Character Development Activities for the Classroom from the University of San Diego Professional & Continuing Education.
  This article provides concrete activity ideas for elementary teachers, such as creating gratitude bulletin boards, defining a classroom moral code, and using peer encouragement. 

• Best Practices for Effective Character Education from n2y.
  This article outlines key best practices, including holding high expectations, creating supportive classroom structures, using collaborative strategies, and involving all school staff.