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Free Digital Lessons for Teachers

SEL Lessons & Compassion Education for Elementary Students

Help your students develop compassion and empathy by teaching essential SEL skills to build a stronger classroom culture.

Elementary Empathy Curriculum & SEL Lessons

The Compassion Project has been helping educators teach elementary school students the complex but critical skill of compassion since 2018.

Compassion is an important social-emotional skill that begins to develop in early childhood and is essential for lifelong health and success. Learning compassion increases a student's sense of wellbeing and improves the learning environment for all learners.

By developing empathy in children, educators lay the groundwork for long-term understanding of diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom and in life. Compassion education is important because it helps to build key social-emotional learning competencies

  • Defining empathy and compassion
  • Identifying emotions
  • Performing acts of kindness
  • Practicing mindfulness and growth mindset
  • Development of the understanding of self

With interactive online activities and robust offline lesson plans, The Compassion Project provides invaluable resources for teaching empathy in the classroom.

Course Snapshot

  • Target Students

    Two Courses: Grades 2-3 and 4-5

  • Curriculum

    Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (CCSS - ELA), Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

  • Time Per Lesson

    10-30 Minutes

Lesson Plan

Compassion Playground

Before students can understand how to act more compassionately, they must first develop a foundational understanding of the concept. In this lesson, compassion is taught in context so that young learners are able to relate it to their own personal experiences.

EmpathEyes

Understanding how someone else feels is a key building block to being more compassionate. Through perspective-taking exercises and interactive activities, students connect the dots between empathy and compassion.

Mindful Maze

The technique of calmly paying attention to the present moment, or being mindful, helps improve self-regulation and sense of well-being. Students learn different mindfulness exercises in this lesson and think about how practicing mindfulness may help their daily routines.

What is The Compassion Project?

Trusted By 50,000+ Educators Across North America

"I feel like The Compassion Project is very helpful for my students. I used the program for an intervention group that is currently working on social skills. The lesson was very engaging and allowed for opportunities for my students to role play."

Gwen Brookshire
Elementary Teacher, Adairsville, GA

“In our school, we learn about "star qualities" (kindness, empathy, grit, respect, mindfulness, etc), and these lessons were a fun way to incorporate these qualities into our curriculum! I believe these strategies will help them so much in their everyday lives and learning to deal with the challenges they may encounter.”

Mrs. Germundson
Elementary Teacher, Glenwood, MN

“I love these lessons! They are engaging, interesting, and they're packed full of wonderfully specific information and strategies kids can use!”

Mrs. Premo
Elementary Teacher, Wrightwood, CA

Frequently Asked Questions

The Compassion Project is a collaboration between Executive Chairman and Former CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, a vocal leader on compassionate management, and global education innovator EVERFI, who was named to Fast Company’s 2020 List of World’s Most Innovative Companies for its work developing The Compassion Project.

The Compassion Project aligns with Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts (CCSS - ELA), Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

EVERFI helps teachers, schools, and districts bring real-world skills to students. Thanks to partners, we provide our digital platform, training, and support at no cost.

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