9/11 - Teaching Togetherness With Kids

Many of you know that I work with kids in the foster care system a few times a month.  I get to develop educational lessons with a heavy focus in current events and art.


I combined both of them this week and thought I would share this simple project just in case anyone needed an idea on how to teach strength and unity and start a discussion about 9/11.

For some kids, the details and history of September 11th is too abstract to grasp.  There are so many large lessons to teach and facets to the event which take maturity and age to understand.

A handful of lessons which are easy to teach is togetherness and strength.

So in honor of 9/11 we constructed a skyline.

Supplies:
2-3 colors washable paints
Empty boxes from the recycling bin (granola bar boxes, soda 12 pack boxes for example)
Tape
Scissors
Paint Brushes

I let the child pick the box and the paint color (we used purple and black washable Tempera paint from the teacher store - good, affordable stuff).

I found that it was easier to take the boxes and detach a side and flip it inside out and tape it together.  The kids painted the 5 sides and left an unpainted bottom.

Then we lined them up side by side and created a skyline.

My hope was that we would have been able to write messages of hope or words of strength on them, but we had a bunch of new kids attend our support group meeting, so there was a small level of apprehension and we went a little slower than normal.

The lesson learned is as One, we are our own individual support/structure, but together we are a larger force and will support each other.  Just like the people who were affected by 9/11 - they came together stronger than ever.