Proprietary & Unique SEL Curriculum
For Out-of-School Time
Co-developed with Changing Perspectives β trusted by 800+ schools in 48 states β these lessons give kids a joyful, creative way to understand and manage their emotions while building a kinder, more empathetic community.
“I really like the variety of topics of the lessons. For those students who really process well through the artistic process, I can see this being a VERY valuable resource.”
π Soft Skills Students Build
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Hispanic Heritage Month
SEL + Art Enrichment Curriculum
9 lessons across Grades Kβ1, 2β3, and 4β5 β co-created with community educators. Zero-prep, word-for-word scripts included. Every student arrives with their CreateCalm Kit already in hand.
π‘ Tips for Kβ1: Keep instructions one sentence at a time. Celebrate everything. Sharing at the end is optional for shy students.
Goal: Students name family members and draw them on their backpack, connecting that family is part of who they are.
Sit in a circle. Introduce familia. Ask who is in their family β model by raising your own hand.
Draw a simple family tree on a backpack β trunk, branches, stick figures or names. Keep it simple to give kids permission to do the same.
Students draw their familia tree. Walk around and ask “Tell me who this is.” If parents are present, ask them to help add names.
Gallery moment β everyone holds up their backpack at once. Take 4β5 quick shares. Close: “Mi familia” β your family travels with you everywhere.
Goal: Students name emotions, match them to colors, and fill a heart drawing with their color choices β using art to express and calm big feelings.
Go around the circle β each student says one feeling word. Introduce: feliz, triste, emocionado, tranquilo, enojado.
Ask what color happiness, anger, or calm might be. Connect to how Mexican and Guatemalan artists use bright colors to tell emotional stories.
Students draw the biggest heart they can, divide it into sections, and fill each with a color that matches a feeling. Don’t interpret β stay curious.
Pairs share: “This color is ___ because ___.” Close: when you have a big feeling, pick up a marker. Art is one way to take care of your heart.
Goal: Students trace each other’s hands on their backpack and draw what they do together with people they love β connecting that community makes us stronger.
Ask 4β5 students what they do with family or friends. Introduce juntos β the value of being together in many Hispanic families.
Trace your hand on a backpack. Fill it with tiny drawings of things you love. Demonstrate overlapping hands with a partner β this is the key visual.
Students trace their hand, fill it with tiny drawings. If a parent is present, trace their hand overlapping. If no parent, pair with a classmate.
Everyone holds up their backpack β all those hands! Take 4β5 shares. End with everyone’s hand in the center: “Juntos!”
π‘ Tips for 2ndβ3rd Grade: Students can handle 2β3 sentence instructions and enjoy the “why.” They may talk more than draw β drawing and talking at the same time is the goal.
Goal: Students identify at least one thing from their family’s culture and draw it on their backpack, connecting cultural roots to personal identity and pride.
Use the tree metaphor β roots hold a tree up and feed it. Ask students where their family is from. 60-second pair share: one food, word, place, or tradition.
Students brainstorm 3β5 roots: food, language, country, holiday, sport, song. Parents: name something from your culture you want your child to carry with pride.
Draw a tree β roots below (cultural symbols) and trunk/branches above (who you are now). Parents can add a root symbol with their child’s permission.
Gallery walk. Students ask each other 2β3 questions about what they see. Close: “RaΓces” β your roots make you you, and they go with you everywhere.
Goal: Students identify a personal or historical hero and draw them on their backpack, connecting heroism to everyday acts of courage.
Introduce Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta (Si se puede!), and Sonia Sotomayor. Then ask: who is a hero in YOUR life β not famous, but real?
Students choose their hero (historical or personal) and tell a partner one reason why. Parents: share a hero who influenced your family.
Draw the hero’s face, body, or symbols representing what they stand for. Write their name in English or Spanish. Early finishers: add a speech bubble.
Quick round: hero’s name + one word. Then silent reflection: what is one small, brave thing YOU could do this week to help someone? Si se puede.
Goal: Student pairs create a collaborative drawing spanning two backpacks placed together β practicing communicating, compromising, and creating as a team.
Introduce Latino neighborhood murals β no one person could make them alone. Today’s challenge: make a two-backpack mural where you have to agree.
Pairs choose a theme (neighborhood, dream for the future, Hispanic Heritage). Decide what goes left, right, and what connects in the middle first.
Backpacks side by side β draw at the same time. Name good collaboration out loud when you see it. Coach conflict gently: “What’s one option you both agree on?”
All pairs hold their backpacks up together. One sentence: what did you have to agree on? Close with the juntos hands-in-center ritual.
π‘ Tips for 4thβ5th Grade: These students can handle identity, legacy, and cultural complexity β lean into it. Normalize drawing: “Abstract is fine. Your backpack is not being graded.”
Goal: Students identify 2β3 personal values and design a visual “personal logo” on their backpack representing what they stand for.
Introduce Frida Kahlo and Chicano muralists β art as a form of voice. Ask: if your backpack could say one thing about who you are, what would it say? 30 seconds of silent thinking.
Read a list of values (family, justice, creativity, courage…). Students pick their top 3. Parent or peer adds one value they notice in the student that wasn’t chosen.
Create a personal logo β no words β representing 3 values. A flame, a bridge, waves. Don’t suggest what to draw: it must come from them.
Each student completes: “My art shows ___ because I believe ___.” Take 4β5 shares. Close: when you carry this backpack, you carry your voice.
Goal: Students identify a “bridge” they live β between languages, cultures, or worlds β and draw it on their backpack, recognizing cross-cultural identity as a strength.
Bridges connect two things that would otherwise be separated. Ask: what two worlds do YOU connect? Two languages? Family world vs. school world? Past and future?
Ask parents directly: what bridge have YOU crossed? Even one sentence is powerful. If no parents, students think of an adult in their life.
Left side = one world. Right side = another. The bridge = YOU in the middle. Parent can add their symbol at one end, walking across with their child.
Each student: “My bridge connects ___ and ___.” Close: bridges are strong by design β built to hold tension from both sides. Living between worlds makes you more.
Goal: Students reflect on the legacy they are already building and create a final drawing. Parents write a private note to their child delivered at the closing.
Introduce Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Selena Quintanilla, Roberto Clemente. Ask: you are already building a legacy. What do you want it to say?
Parents quietly write 2β3 sentences on an index card: the legacy they already see in their child β not what they hope for, but what they already see. Keep it secret until Phase 3.
Students draw their legacy β what they want to stand for and be remembered for. Soft music optional. Be a calm presence; narrate less than usual.
Parents hand their card to their child and read it aloud (or privately). Give 2 minutes of quiet β do not fill the silence. Then: hands in center. “Juntos.” End there.
Black History Month
SEL + Art Enrichment Curriculum
9 lessons across Grades Kβ1, 2β3, and 4β5 β honest, joyful, and culturally grounded. Zero-prep, word-for-word scripts included. Every student arrives with their CreateCalm Kit already in hand.
π‘ Tips for Kβ1: One sentence at a time. If a student is stuck, say: “Draw a circle. Now put a face on it. That is your person.” Celebrate everything. Sharing at the end is always optional.
Goal: Students draw themselves on their backpack and name at least one thing that makes them special, connecting personal identity to the idea that their story matters.
Sit in a circle. Lead the affirmations: “I am somebody. I matter. My story is important.” Say them slowly, with energy β repeat if students are shy. Connect to Black History Month.
Draw a simple self-portrait β big circle for a head, lines for body. Add tiny symbols for things that make you YOU (a spoon for cooking, a heart for family). Keep it deliberately simple.
Students draw themselves big in the middle, then fill the space with at least 3 things that make them them. Parents: tell your child one specific thing that makes them extraordinary.
Gallery hold-up: everyone raises backpacks at once. Take 4β5 shares. Close: “Everywhere you carry this backpack, you carry your story. Your story matters.” Repeat: I am somebody.
Goal: Students connect emotions to colors and draw a “courage shield” on their backpack β practicing that bravery is not the absence of fear, but acting anyway.
Ask: have you ever had to do something scary? Introduce Rosa Parks β she was afraid when she sat in the front of that bus, and she did it anyway. Bravery is feeling scared and still moving forward.
Ask: what color is scared? Brave? Proud? Nervous? Strong? Introduce the shield shape β it protects you. Your brave colors protect you.
Big shield on the backpack, divided into color sections for each feeling. Somewhere on the shield: draw one brave thing YOU have done β even something small. Parents: share a time you were scared and brave at once.
Pairs share: “One of my brave colors is ___ because ___.” Close: Rosa Parks had her shield. And now so do you β and it travels with you everywhere.
Goal: Students trace hands with a partner and fill the overlapping space with what they do for each other β connecting community support to the history of collective action.
Ask: has anything important ever been done by just one person, totally alone? Harriet Tubman had the Underground Railroad. Dr. King had thousands of marchers. Community is everything.
Trace your hand on a backpack, then a partner’s overlapping. Outside your hand = what you bring. Outside their hand = what they bring. The overlap = what you make together.
Students trace each other’s hands overlapping on their own backpack. Fill each section with what each person brings. If no parent, pair with a classmate β works just as well.
Hold up backpacks β all those hands. Take 4β5 shares. Quote Harriet Tubman. End with everyone’s hand in the center: “Together.”
π‘ Tips for 2ndβ3rd Grade: They can handle 2β3 sentence instructions and enjoy the “why.” If a student brings up racism or injustice, honor it: “That is real and it is wrong. Let us talk about what people did to fight back.” Then redirect to drawing.
Goal: Students learn about Black inventors and artists, then draw their own invention or creation on their backpack β connecting imagination to identity and agency.
Introduce Garrett Morgan (traffic light), Mae C. Jemison (first Black woman in space), and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Brooklyn kid who became a world-famous artist). They all started with an idea.
60 seconds of silent thinking: if you could invent or create anything, what would it be? Pair-share. Parents: what did you dream of creating when you were young?
Draw the invention or artwork on the backpack. Label it. Draw who it helps and why. “This is YOUR idea β nobody else in the world has exactly this idea. That makes it valuable.”
Hold up backpacks. Each student: “What did you make, and what does it do?” Take 5β6 shares. Close: Garrett Morgan, Mae Jemison, and Basquiat all started with an idea just like yours.
Goal: Students learn how Black activists used voice, art, and action to stand up for justice β then draw a symbol of something they would stand up for on their backpack.
Introduce John Lewis β marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, was beaten, and kept going. His words: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” Ask: what would YOU get in good trouble for?
A cause is something you care about enough to take action for. 30 seconds of thinking, then pair-share. Parents: share a cause you care deeply about and why β this models that everyone can be someone who stands up.
Not a word β a picture. A symbol that says what you stand for without writing. Around it, draw 2β3 things showing why this cause matters. Don’t redirect students away from difficult causes β validate them.
Fast round: symbol + one sentence about what you stand for. Close: John Lewis refused to sit down and be quiet. He changed America. Your voice and your cause matter β they’re on your backpack now.
Goal: Student pairs create a collaborative drawing across two backpacks β inspired by the Harlem Renaissance tradition of communal art and expression.
Introduce the Harlem Renaissance β Langston Hughes (jazz poetry), Aaron Douglas (bold murals), Duke Ellington (music that made people feel things words couldn’t say). A burst of creativity that said: we are here, we are brilliant.
Pairs choose a theme: celebration, dream, neighborhood, or tribute. Plan what goes left, right, and what connects in the middle. The drawing must cross from one backpack to the other.
Backpacks side by side β draw at the same time. Name good collaboration out loud when you see it. When friction arises, coach: “What’s one small adjustment you both could make so the piece works together?”
All pairs hold their backpacks up together. What did you have to work out? One sentence. Close: the Harlem Renaissance was powered by hundreds of artists inspiring each other. Hands in: “Together.”
π‘ Tips for 4thβ5th Grade: These students can handle complexity β injustice, legacy, systemic change. If a student says “Black history is sad,” say: “Some of it is. And some of it is the most powerful story of perseverance and brilliance ever told. Let’s get into both.”
Goal: Students explore freedom β external and internal β and design a personal freedom symbol on their backpack reflecting what freedom means in their own life.
Introduce Frederick Douglass (taught himself to read in secret β “learning was the pathway from slavery to freedom”) and James Baldwin (“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”). Ask: what does freedom mean to YOU right now?
Freedom to speak honestly. To feel safe. To be exactly who you are. To dream big. Pick 2β3. Parents: share one freedom that took someone in your family real effort or sacrifice to have.
Design a symbol for YOUR freedom β open skies, open doors, roots growing into wings, a flame that cannot be put out. These are starting points. Make it yours. Soft music recommended.
Each student: “For me, freedom means ___.” Close: Frederick Douglass learned to read in secret. James Baldwin wrote the truth. You just named what freedom means to you. That is a practice.
Goal: Students explore how change happens across generations and draw a timeline of change on their backpack β connecting historical progress to their own role in the ongoing story.
Walk through the timeline: Harriet Tubman (1849 escape) β Civil War ends slavery (1865) β Civil Rights Movement (1950sβ60s) β Obama elected (2008), 138 years after Black men first could vote. Ask: what would it take for YOU to work toward something you might not live to see?
Ask parents directly: what has changed in YOUR lifetime that someone before you fought for? What do you have today that was not guaranteed when you were young? Even one sentence is powerful.
A line across the backpack: left = something fought for (historical or family), middle = where we are now (what exists, what’s better, what’s still broken), right = where you hope things go. Put yourself somewhere on the line.
Each student: “I am the part of the story where ___.” Close: Harriet Tubman didn’t see the end of slavery. Dr. King didn’t see a Black president. They worked anyway. You are in the middle β which means what you do matters.
Goal: Students create a final drawing about the legacy they are already building. Parents write a private note to their child. The lesson closes with a community ceremony.
Legacy is not what you leave when you die β it’s what you put into the world while you’re alive. Ruby Bridges was 6. Harriet Tubman was enslaved. Frederick Douglass couldn’t legally read. They started where they were, with what they had.
Parents quietly write 2β3 sentences on an index card: What legacy do I already see in my child? Not what they hope for β what they SEE right now. Keep it secret until Phase 3. If no parents, facilitator writes a card for each student.
The last drawing for this curriculum: “What do I want to stand for?” Can connect to any prior lesson (identity, courage, community, invention, cause, freedom, timeline) or be entirely new. It just has to be true. Soft music. Quiet presence.
Parents hand the card to their child and read it aloud (or privately). Give 2 minutes of quiet β do not fill the silence. Then: everyone hands in the center. “Together.” End there. The silence after is part of the lesson.
Women’s History Month
SEL + Art Enrichment Curriculum
9 lessons across Grades Kβ1, 2β3, and 4β5 β honoring the courage, creativity, and leadership of women across every race, culture, and background. Zero-prep, word-for-word scripts included.
π‘ Tips for Kβ1: Give one instruction at a time. Celebrate constantly. Sharing is optional β “You can show your backpack without talking if you want.” These lessons are for all students, all genders.
Goal: Students name the women in their lives and draw them on their backpack, connecting that the women around us every day are part of history too.
Sit in a circle. Ask: who is a woman in your life that you love? Take 4β5 answers, repeating each back warmly. “Those women β the ones you just named β they are part of history too.”
Draw 2β3 simple figures and name them as you go. Students can draw faces, full bodies, or just circles with names. If a woman is present today, invite her to add herself to the backpack too.
Students draw their women β giving them as much space as they deserve. Add color, patterns, or symbols representing something about each person. Parents: draw yourself on your child’s backpack with their help.
Hold up backpacks β look at all these amazing women. 4β5 shares: one person and one thing that makes her amazing. Close: “Your grandmas, your moms, your aunties have been doing brave and important things your whole life. They are history. Carry them with you.”
Goal: Students connect emotions to colors, draw a bold design on their backpack, and connect the act of expressing feelings to the courage of women artists throughout history.
Introduce Georgia O’Keeffe (giant flowers β “she painted large because she wanted people to really SEE them”) and Frida Kahlo (painted herself showing pain AND joy). “These women used color to be brave. Today, so will you.”
Ask: what color is YOUR bravest feeling? Courage might be red, joy yellow, calm blue, love pink or gold. Draw a big, bold design β fill it with the colors of YOUR feelings. Make it as big and brave as Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers.
Big shape on the backpack β a flower, heart, sun, burst, whatever feels right. Fill sections, each one a feeling color. Be bold. Take up space. “Georgia O’Keeffe would want you to.” Parents: draw your own brave colors on paper alongside your child.
Pairs share: “My brave color is ___ and it means ___ because ___.” Close: “Frida Kahlo knew β showing what is inside you, the real stuff, is one of the bravest things a person can do. Your backpack is showing the real you.”
Goal: Students trace hands with a partner and connect personal relationships to the long history of women supporting each other.
Introduce Sojourner Truth β formerly enslaved woman who became one of the greatest speakers for both freedom and women’s rights, always traveling and speaking alongside other women. Ask: who shows up for YOU?
Trace your hand on the backpack. Inside: tiny pictures of things you love to do with people who support you. Overlapping hands mean: we rise together.
Trace your hand. Fill the inside with drawings of what you love to do with people in your corner. If someone is present, trace their hand overlapping yours. Inside their hand, draw something you do together.
Hold up backpacks β all those hands. “Every hand belongs to someone who shows up for someone else. That is what women’s history is made of. Not just the famous names β but millions of hands, rising together.” Hands in center: “We rise together!”
π‘ Tips for 2ndβ3rd Grade: They enjoy the “why” behind activities. These lessons honor women of all backgrounds β when a woman from a specific culture comes up, acknowledge the extra barriers she faced and the extra courage it took.
Goal: Students learn about women who broke barriers and connect their own aspirations to the doors those women opened. They draw their future self on their backpack.
Introduce Malala Yousafzai (Nobel Peace Prize at 17 for girls’ education), Billie Jean King (fought for equal prize money in tennis β and proved women could compete), and Bessie Coleman (first Black woman in the world to earn a pilot’s license, 1921 β had to go to France to do it).
60 seconds of silent thinking: what does your future self look like? What are they doing, wearing, where are they standing? Parents: tell your child one thing you see in them that points toward their future.
Draw your future self BIG. Around the figure, add symbols of what they do or stand for: stethoscope, paintbrush, microphone, gavel, rocket, trophy, book. You can write words too. Parents: add one symbol of something you believe they will achieve.
Gallery walk, then 3β4 shares: “What is your future self doing, and which woman paved the way for that?” Close: “Every single thing you described β someone fought for your right to dream it. She paved the way. Now you carry it forward.”
Goal: Students learn about diverse women changemakers, choose a hero (famous or personal), and draw them on their backpack β connecting historical courage to everyday acts of bravery.
Harriet Tubman (freed others 19 times on the Underground Railroad), Marie Curie (Nobel Prize twice β wasn’t officially allowed to attend university but went anyway), Dolores Huerta (coined SΓ se puede, still active in her 90s), Wangari Maathai (51 million trees planted in Africa, Nobel Peace Prize), Malala Yousafzai (youngest Nobel laureate ever).
30 seconds of thinking: who is YOUR hero β from today’s lesson or anyone, famous or personal. Pair-share. Parents: who is a woman who changed something for YOU?
Draw the hero β face, body, or symbols representing her. Add 2β3 symbols of what she stands for. Write her name. Early finishers: add a speech bubble with something your hero would say to YOU.
Fast round: hero’s name + one word. Close: “Malala said: One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world. I add: one student with a backpack and a marker can change their world too. That student is you.”
Goal: Student pairs create a collaborative drawing spanning two backpacks β connected to the long history of women working together to make things that matter.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked side by side for 50+ years to win women the vote β neither lived to see it, but together they built the movement that made it inevitable. The NAACP women (Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell) fought racism and sexism simultaneously, writing and organizing side by side.
Choose a theme: a woman discussed today, a place that represents strength, a shared dream, something that brings you both joy. Plan left, right, and the connecting middle first.
Backpacks side by side β draw at the same time, keep talking. When you see good collaboration, name it: “I see you two checking in with each other. That is exactly what Anthony and Stanton did for 50 years.”
Hold up backpacks side by side. One sentence: what did you have to work out together? Close: “Side by side. That is how the world gets changed.” Hands in center: “Side by side!”
π‘ Tips for 4thβ5th Grade: These students are ready for gender equity, systemic barriers, intersectionality, and legacy. All genders benefit β frame it as: “Learning about women’s history makes all of us better at seeing who gets left out and what we can do about it.”
Goal: Students identify 2β3 personal values and design a visual symbol on their backpack, connecting their own voice to the tradition of women using art, writing, and action as change.
Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize in Literature β “If you have some power, your job is to empower somebody else”), Malala (blogged under a fake name at age 11), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (wrote legal dissents saying “I dissent” to a future age), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (TED talk translated to dozens of languages, turned into a book given to every 16-year-old in Sweden).
Read the values list (Justice, Compassion, Courage, Creativity, Truth, Family, Education, Equality, Joy, Community, Resilience, Kindness, Freedom, Excellence, Integrity). Pick top 3. Parent/peer adds one value they see in the student that wasn’t chosen.
Personal logo β no words β representing 3 values. A scale for justice, a flame for courage, an open book for education, a broken chain for freedom, a blooming flower for growth. Don’t suggest what to draw β it must come from them.
“My art shows ___ because I believe ___.” Take 4β5 shares. Close: “Toni Morrison said: If you have power, your job is to empower somebody else. Your backpack carries your power. Your values. Your voice. Use it.”
Goal: Students identify a woman whose work or courage made their life possible and draw a symbol of that connection β connecting personal gratitude to historical awareness.
Title IX (1972) β Patsy Takemoto Mink fought for every girl who has ever played on a school sports team. The Violence Against Women Act (1994) β championed by advocates. The 19th Amendment (1920) β 72 years of marching. Ask: whose shoulders are YOU standing on?
Ask parents directly: whose shoulders did YOU stand on? What do you have today that was not guaranteed when you were young? Give 2β3 parents space to share. Even one sentence is powerful.
Draw the connection between you and the woman who made your life more possible β you standing on shoulders, two figures connected across time, roots feeding a tree, a torch being passed, a door held open. Include a symbol for YOU and a symbol for HER. Connect them.
“I stand on the shoulders of ___ because ___.” Close: “Someday, someone will stand on YOUR shoulders. You are both the person being lifted and the person doing the lifting. That is history. That is you.”
Goal: Students reflect on the legacy they are already building and create a final drawing. Parents write a private note about the legacy they see in their child. The lesson closes with a ceremony.
Women’s history is still being written and your generation will write the next chapters. Malala was 11 when she started writing. RBG started speaking up as a law student. Greta Thunberg started her climate strike at 15. None of them waited for permission. Audre Lorde: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether I am afraid.”
Parents write 2β3 sentences on an index card: the legacy they already see in their child β not what they hope for, but what they already see right now. Keep it secret until Phase 3. If no parents present, facilitator writes a genuine card for each student.
The last drawing for this curriculum: draw something representing your legacy, your vision, what you want to stand for. Can connect to any prior lesson or be completely new. “It does not have to be finished or perfect. It just has to be true.” Soft music. Calm presence.
Parents hand the card to their child and read aloud (or privately). 2 minutes of quiet β do not fill the silence. Then: hands in center. “We rise together.” End exactly there. “Go write your chapter.”
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
SEL + Art Enrichment Curriculum
9 lessons celebrating the contributions, traditions, creativity, and resilience of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities β from East Asia and Southeast Asia to South Asia and the Pacific Islands. Zero-prep, word-for-word scripts included.
π‘ Tips for Kβ1: Give one instruction at a time. AAPI is not one culture β celebrate specificity. If a student or parent is from an AAPI background, invite them to be the expert in the room.
Goal: Students name the people in their family and draw them on their backpack, connecting that family β across all cultures β is the root of who we are.
In many Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, family includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins β even ancestors. Introduce kazoku (Japanese), pamilya (Tagalog), and ohana (Hawaiian). “Ohana means family. And it means no one gets left behind or forgotten.”
Draw a simple tree β trunk, branches, a name or tiny face on each branch. Keep the demo deliberately simple. If a parent is here, ask them: who else should be on our tree? They might know names you forgot β grandparents, cousins, people from far away.
Students draw their family tree β big, taking up space. Write names, draw faces, or just circles with smiles. Parents: add a branch with your permission β someone from your family history you want them to know about.
Hold up backpacks β look at all these family trees. “Every single tree is different. Every family is worth celebrating.” Take 4β5 shares. Close: “Ohana means no one gets left behind. Your whole family is on this backpack now. Carry them wherever you go.”
Goal: Students connect emotions to natural symbols and draw a feelings garden on their backpack β experiencing art and nature imagery as tools for calming and expressing big feelings.
In Japanese haiku poetry, nature images describe emotions β cherry blossoms falling = sweetness and sadness at once. In Pacific Islander traditions, the ocean describes emotions: calm waters for peace, big waves for excitement. Ask: how are you feeling right now β described in nature? “I feel like a stormy ocean. I feel like sunshine. I feel like a tiny seed just starting to grow.”
Introduce nature-feeling symbols: sunflower for happiness, raindrop for sadness, thundercloud for anger, lotus for calm (grows in muddy water and blooms beautifully β stands for rising above hard things), palm tree for strength, wave for excitement, seed for hope.
Fill the backpack with plants and nature symbols representing feelings. Make it colorful, make it yours. Parents: draw your own feelings garden on paper β what is growing in YOUR garden today? Soft nature sounds or music if available.
Pairs share: “This plant is called ___ and it means ___ because ___.” Close: “Just like a real garden, your feelings are always changing. Some days more sunshine, some days more rain. And that is exactly how it should be.”
Goal: Students trace hands with a partner and draw pictures of things they do together β connecting personal relationships to the collective art traditions found across AAPI cultures.
In the Philippines, communities build homes together β bayanihan (everyone helps carry the load). In Japan and Korea, families gather to make dumplings, mochi, kimchi together. In Pacific Island cultures, weaving is done in circles with songs and stories. What is something you love to do WITH another person?
Trace your hand on the backpack. Inside: tiny pictures of things you love to do with people you care about. Overlapping hands mean: we are in this together. Like bayanihan.
Trace your hand. Fill the inside with tiny drawings of what you love to do with your people. If someone is present, trace their hand overlapping. Inside their hand, draw something you do together. Talk while you draw.
Hold up backpacks β all those hands. “Bayanihan. We carry each other. That is what those hands show.” Take 4β5 shares. Hands in center: “Bayanihan! Together!”
π‘ Tips for 2ndβ3rd Grade: AAPI heritage is extremely diverse β avoid assuming shared backgrounds. Celebrate specificity and invite students to name their own community. If a student brings up discrimination or anti-Asian violence, validate fully.
Goal: Students identify elements of their family heritage and draw them as roots on their backpack, connecting personal cultural identity to the rich diversity of AAPI communities.
Use the tree and roots metaphor. AAPI Heritage Month celebrates roots from Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Cambodia, Samoa, Hawaii, Tonga, and dozens more. Ask: do you know where your family is from? 60-second pair share: one food, word, tradition, or place.
Roots could be: food your family makes on special days, a language or words you know, a tradition or celebration, a story your grandparent tells, a value like respect, hard work, or education. 2-minute brainstorm. Parents: what is one thing from your culture you want your child to carry with pride?
Tree with roots underground (cultural symbols: foods, words, places, values) and branches above (YOU and your life today). “The deeper the roots, the taller the tree.” Parents: add one root symbol with your child’s permission.
Gallery walk β 60 seconds to see each other’s roots. Then 2β3 student questions to each other. “Look at how many different roots are in this room. Dozens of countries. Dozens of traditions. All of them beautiful. Your roots are not behind you β they are under you, holding you up every day.”
Goal: Students learn about AAPI trailblazers, identify a hero (famous or personal), and draw them on their backpack β connecting courage and excellence to everyday heroism.
Yuri Kochiyama (interned during WWII, spent the rest of her life fighting for justice for all communities), Kamala Harris (first South Asian American, first woman VP), Patsy Takemoto Mink (first woman of color in Congress β Title IX is named after her), Sunisa Lee (Hmong American Olympic gold medalist, symbol of her community’s perseverance as refugees).
30 seconds of thinking: who is YOUR trailblazer? Anyone β historical or personal β who went first, who faced something hard and kept going. Pair-share. Parents: who blazed a trail for YOU in your family or community?
Draw the trailblazer β face, body, or symbols. Add 2β3 symbols: a gavel for justice, a gymnast’s ribbon for excellence, a door swinging open for breaking barriers. Write their name. Early finishers: add a speech bubble with something they’d say to you.
Fast round: trailblazer’s name + one word. Close: “Every person you named went first. They opened a door. What door could YOU open for someone else this week? You don’t have to be famous. You just have to go first. Trailblazers. That is you.”
Goal: Student pairs create a collaborative drawing spanning two backpacks β connecting the experience of co-creation to collective art traditions across AAPI cultures.
Indonesian/Malaysian batik (many hands β one draws, another waxes, another dyes β each contribution makes the whole beautiful). Pacific Islands tapa cloth (pounded bark, painted in groups with songs). Japanese kintsugi (broken pottery repaired with gold β the cracks become the beauty; what has been broken and repaired is more beautiful than what was never broken).
Choose a theme: an AAPI tradition, a natural scene (ocean, mountain, garden, sky), a dream for the future, something you both love. Plan left, right, and the connecting middle first β the middle must cross from one backpack to the other.
Backpacks side by side β draw at the same time, check in with each other. When you see good collaboration, name it: “I noticed you just checked in with your partner before you changed directions. That is real teamwork.”
Hold up backpacks together. One sentence: what did you have to work out? Close: “Like batik, like tapa cloth, like kintsugi β your collaboration made something more beautiful than one person could make alone.” Hands in center: “Together!”
π‘ Tips for 4thβ5th Grade: These students can handle identity complexity, the model minority myth, legacy, and resilience. If a student brings up discrimination or immigration fear β validate it fully: “That is real. Thank you for naming it. Can you show that on your backpack?”
Goal: Students identify 2β3 personal values and design a visual symbol on their backpack β connecting their own creative voice to the tradition of AAPI artistic expression and identity.
Yayoi Kusama (Japanese artist who covered everything in polka dots to cope with anxiety β installations seen by millions, still making art in her 90s), Isamu Noguchi (Japanese American who didn’t belong fully in either country β responded with sculptures that speak to every human being), Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya (Thai American muralist during anti-Asian violence: “We belong here. We are not invisible”). 30 seconds of quiet thinking: what would your backpack say?
Read values list (Family, Respect, Excellence, Creativity, Perseverance, Joy, Education, Community, Compassion, Courage, Honor, Identity, Justice, Belonging, Balance). Pick top 3. Parent/peer adds one value they see in the student that wasn’t chosen.
Personal logo β no words β representing 3 values. A lotus for resilience (rising through difficulty), a crane for perseverance (folding 1000 paper cranes is said to grant a wish), a mountain for strength, a wave for adaptability. Don’t suggest what to draw β it must come from them.
“My art shows ___ because I believe ___.” Take 4β5 shares. Close: “Yayoi Kusama: art heals. Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya: we are here. Your backpack says you are here. Do not let anyone make you invisible.”
Goal: Students identify the bridge they live between cultures, generations, or identities and draw it on their backpack β connecting bicultural identity to the broader AAPI experience of navigating multiple worlds.
Many AAPI Americans live between two worlds β American AND Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian, Hawaiian, Samoan. Ocean Vuong (Vietnamese American refugee, writes in English about memories that happen in Vietnamese β “to honor what his family could not say out loud”). Ali Wong (made the parts that felt awkward and not-fitting into her art and her power). Ask: what bridge do YOU live?
Ask parents directly: what bridge have you crossed in your life? What two worlds have you had to navigate? Even one sentence is powerful. If no parents present, students think of an adult who has navigated different worlds.
Left side: symbol of one world. Right side: symbol of another world. On the bridge: draw yourself β you are the connection. If a parent is here, they can draw their symbol at one end, showing they are crossing with you.
“My bridge connects ___ and ___.” Close: “Being between worlds is not a weakness β it is architecture. Bridges are engineered to hold tension from both sides without breaking. You carry two or more worlds at once. That means you can understand people others cannot. That is a gift.”
Goal: Students reflect on the legacy they are already building and create a final drawing on their backpack. Parents write a private note about the legacy they see in their child. The lesson closes with a ceremony.
Fred Korematsu (refused internment, fought to the Supreme Court β lost, then won decades later: his legacy is the U.S. government’s official apology to Japanese Americans). Dalip Singh Saund (first Asian American elected to Congress: “In America, what matters is what you do, not where you were born”). Ellison Onizuka (first Asian American in space, Challenger astronaut: “Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds”).
Parents quietly write 2β3 sentences: the legacy they already see in their child β not what they hope for, but what they already see right now. Keep it secret until Phase 3. If no parents present, facilitator writes a genuine card for each student.
Last drawing for this curriculum: draw your legacy, what you want to stand for, what you want to be remembered for. Can connect to any prior lesson (family tree, feelings garden, roots, trailblazer, mural, voice, bridge) or be completely new. “It just has to be true.” Soft music. Quiet presence.
Parents hand the card to their child and read aloud (or privately). 2 minutes of quiet β do not fill the silence. Then: hands in center. “Together.” End exactly there. “Go carry your story.”
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