Like most of us - I love to teach kids important life skills like values, decisions making, goals, and communication. Like most of us, I struggle to make this fun engaging for the kids - especially my darling 7th graders who need the information most in my opinion! In particular, I want to teach this age level essential interpersonal relationship skills.
So one day I stepped back from my lesson planning craziness and asked myself -why? Why do I want to/have to teach 7th graders these - in my opinion - over-taught and over-simplified topics?!
What do I really want them to know? Mental health? Interpersonal relationships? “adulating”? Ok so now what?
I was inspired to totally turn my curriculum upside down and haha “inside out” by Disney’s new movie Inside Out! If you have not seen this gem of a movie stop reading right now, go watch and come back to finish reading this!!
Thus I created a fun new lesson without doing a ton of new work! I edited an old ppt. with some updated Vocab, that I present on the first day of this lesson. Check it out HERE. Then I have them answer the “Before the Movie” questions on this WORKSHEET.
The next day we spend as much time as possible/needed to discuss their answers and why the heck I would ask them these questions! Then they get to watch the movie and answer the “during the movie questions” while they do so!...fast forward a day or 2, they finish by answering the “after the movie” questions and more discussion with me on their answers - the resulting conversations are fantastic - try it!
This is such a creative and engaging approach to teaching mental health! I love the idea of using "Inside Out" as a springboard for discussions. It's a fantastic way to make a complex topic relatable and interesting for 7th graders. I'll definitely be incorporating some of these ideas into my classroom. Thank you for sharing your valuable insights and resources!
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