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Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Good citizenship is like a garden. Your seeds in a garden will grow with water, sun, and care.

Good citizenship can help you plant seeds in life that allow for goodness to grow and spread throughout your community. But to understand good citizenship, you should start asking some questions!

What is the difference between good and bad citizenship?
What does being a good citizen when you are young mean?
How can you plant seeds of good citizenship that will affect others?

Being a good citizen can involve different responsibilities at different times throughout your life.

The exciting part about good citizenship skills is that you can start working on these skills very young and continue to learn and improve as you grow. It's never too early to start, so let's learn how to plant our seeds of good citizenship!

The phrase good citizenship can be a little confusing.

What does citizenship mean?

Being a citizen means helping out in our neighborhood and our country. It's about caring for the well-being of our society and taking part in activities to make things improve.

child with a globe

Many more responsibilities go along with good citizenship as you get older. But for now, your main duty is building your character, which builds your everyday superhero powers.

When you see examples of good citizenship in action, think about where you could fit it into your daily life. When a student shows good citizenship, that student is helpful, caring, respectful, and honest.

What other characteristics can you come up with to identify good citizenship in your life?

Take a look at an example to understand good citizenship better.

Now that you have seen an example of good citizenship in action, think about creative ways to practice this behavior in your community.

When you wrote down your good citizenship opportunities above, did you feel excited to start practicing good citizenship right away?
Would you react the way George did when Julie needed help?

You might still be asking what you can do to practice good citizenship and impact your community. Sometimes, it helps to see good citizenship in action by kids just like you!

Watch the video below to see two young siblings plant seeds of good citizenship as they spread kindness throughout their community.

Can you think of two acts of kindness you and your parent or teacher could do together?

Good citizenship can sound confusing or overwhelming at first because you may not understand how to practice these skills at a young age; however, the video shows that there is no activity too big or too small, and you can do them at almost any age.

Everyday superheroes take advantage of big and small opportunities to make a positive difference in their communities.

Small gestures can change the world!

As you notice simple examples of good citizenship, you should see a common theme.

Good citizenship starts with helping to meet a need.

You can notice needs in your home, neighborhood, and community. You may even be able to look at these needs and come up with creative ideas that the adults do not even notice!

Good citizenship is also focused on making good choices!

Print out the Choices, Choices Everywhere! worksheet found under Downloadable Resources in the right-hand sidebar. Cut out the choices representing bad and good citizenship behaviors and paste them into the correct columns.

Remember: Good and bad citizenship involves choices, and these choices are all around you every day.

You are ready to move onto the Got It? section to learn more about citizenship.