Supporting Leadership: Elementary School Learners

For elementary school learners, there are a variety of activities with which you can engage to help support a child develop greater leadership skills. Read on to learn more about how you can incorporate leadership-related activities with your learners.

Thinking About Leadership (‘I’)

Classroom Roles

Similar to the preschool years, elementary-aged children enjoy the act of helping. A great opportunity to develop leadership skills is through a class helper chart. Discuss with your class what it takes to make a classroom successful and effective. As a class, co-construct a chart listing several occupations or tasks for the classroom such as:

• Greeter – Person who says hello or good morning to each learner as they join the classroom.
• Classroom gardener – Person who is responsible for watering the plants.
• Meteorologist – Person who reports on the weather for the day.
• Calendar cadet – Person who is in charge of the calendar for the day listing any special holidays, birthdays, events, etc.
• Line leader – Person who leads the classroom through the hallway and back again (to recess, the library, etc.).
• Snack helper – Person who is responsible for setting the table for snack time.
• Zookeeper – Person who is responsible for caring for the classroom pet.

Allow learners to take turns choosing a job or role and being responsible for it during the day or week. Teamwork, leadership, and a sense of ownership are fostered by this exercise.

Growth Mindset

We also encourage you to think about how you can foster a growth mindset. Children need support learning from their mistakes and, sometimes, that means offering them permission to fail and try again. Supporting a growth mindset increases resilience, fosters neural growth and adaptability, and empowers learners, all key leadership skills. Help your learners understand the power of a growth mindset by first exploring the video Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset.

Following the video, help learners apply their learning through art and creative expression using Beautiful Oops, a story that teaches us to make art from an oops. Start by reading aloud the book and facilitating a discussion about mistakes, offering examples of when you have made a mistake. Ask your learners:

Are mistakes okay to make? Why? 

How does making a mistake make us feel? 

What can we learn from making mistakes? 

Following your discussion, play the following video where author and illustrator Barney Saltzberg shares inspiration for Beautiful Oops, as well as the many oopses that have inspired their work.

Finally, using a crayon or marker (or any writing utensil), have your learners close their eyes (if that feels comfortable) and make an oops on their paper. Invite them to look at their oops from different angles, turning the paper to different sides. Remind them that their oops has unlimited possibilities and invite them to create something new – their own beautiful oops. When finished, learners can display their art as part of a gallery walk. You can extend the invitation to other classrooms or caregivers.

What Makes An Awesome Leader?

When thinking about your learners and/or learning environment, consider how you can carve out authentic opportunities for learners to start thinking about leadership. For example, you might invite learners to consider a role model they admire. Beginning with the video from Kid President, encourage a group discussion about the central message of the video, what makes an awesome leader?

Following the video, brainstorm a co-constructed list of qualities, traits, and behaviours that makes an awesome leader. When the list is complete, post it centrally within the classroom for quick reference. Next, invite learners to reflect on their role model, including the person’s traits and characteristics, and what kind of advice they would provide to young people. You might extend this activity by inviting them to write a letter from the perspective of their role model.

What Makes Me Courageous?

As an educator supporting changemaking, we also invite you to get curious about how you can encourage risk-taking and courageous leadership. Sometimes that might start by giving learners permission to be courageous. We don’t necessarily mean you are giving permission to, but rather reminding them of their ability to be courageous. One of our favourite picture books that leads with courage is I Am Courage: A Book of Resilience. Read the book aloud or play this video.

Facilitate a discussion about what it means to be courageous and brave, inviting learners to generate a co-constructed list or simply write reflectively. Next, watch the video PBS Kids Talk About Bravery & Courage to listen to these diverse stories from children their age showing up as brave. Following the video, invite your learners to reflect on and write about a time where they were brave and courageous, and how that impacted themselves and others.

Feeling Leadership (‘We’)

Games

Games can be a great way to teach children leadership skills. For example, in this game you can divide your class into two groups and provide them with something to cover their eyes (e.g., tie, scarf, etc.). Working in a large indoor or outdoor area, place the two teams at opposite sides of the space and instruct everyone, except one member of each team, to put something over their eyes. The one member whose eyes are not covered should lead their team to the other side using clear communication. Make sure that each member in the team is getting a chance to lead the team in regular intervals. The team which successfully leads their members across their finish line wins (Note: Depending on your learners, covering their eyes may not feel supportive. You know your learners best!).

Layering in creativity, you might encourage your learners to design a new game. Working in small groups, children can get creative by taking a familiar game and developing a few new rules. For example, when playing a board game, the children might change how many times a person can roll the dice. When playing I Spy, the new rule may be that you can only spy things that start with a specific letter. When playing tag, you have to do a dance or gesture if you get tagged. These activities can help children develop their leadership skills, grow their confidence, and learn how to communicate effectively.

Group Decision-Making

Now that you have a sense of how to support learners think about what it means to be a leader, let’s explore some of the ways in which you can help them think about leadership in relation to others. One activity you can use to support learners is by introducing group decision-making. For example, you might present them with scenarios or challenges that require them to make group decisions, a challenging task for many of us. The scenarios or challenges could be a fictional or a real-life situation. Click through the following for some examples.

Practicing Leadership (‘Us’)

Classroom Activism

A great way to practice leadership skills is by giving learners the opportunity to organize a themed party, mini-carnival in the school, or support a local community organization. During the holidays, for example, many organizations collect non-perishable food items, winter clothing like coats, or holiday gifts containing essential everyday items. Learners can work together as a class or in small groups to brainstorm, plan, and lead their event.

Genius Hour

How can you nurture your learners to develop a sense of agency and their ability to support others as leaders? One way might be to encourage students to lead by example through presentations or mini-lessons on subjects in which they are particularly knowledgeable, interested, or passionate. Genius Hour, a student-led inquiry project, is a great way to get started on this work. John Spencer’s video You Get To Have Your Own Genius Hour, is a great way to introduce Genius Hour to students. Take a look!

Watch as these learners from Montrose Elementary School take on leadership roles by presenting their Genius Hour projects to their class.

Mindfulness

Finally, children are never too young to start developing their mindfulness practice. One way you can start nurturing mindfulness with learners is to read the book Alphabreaths: The ABCs of Mindful Breathing. Click through the slides below to learn more about this excellent resource.

Whether organizing for a local charity, planning a holiday party for caregivers, building together, or navigating an obstacle course, the teamwork, leadership, and organizational skills that are developed through these activities will help support learners on their changemaking journey.