Just in time to help you plan for National Bullying Prevention Month (October) or classroom or group activities anytime of the year – some free resources from willUstand, Pacer, the We Do Listen Foundation, and more!
I’ve written before about willUstand, a wonderful bullying prevention initiative started by a middle school student in my district that features Stand, a crowd-sourced music video, and downloadable ($1) song. Now willUstand has added eleven different free, downloadable bullying prevention posters for elementary, middle, and high school settings. (They will be adding more posters in the future.) Here are a few examples:
We use the song and video in our third, fourth, and fifth grades – the kids absolutely LOVE them – and will be displaying the posters and adding lessons that use them to inspire students to create their own Stand posters.
The chorus of Stand is hard to forget. You can find the full lyrics here.
I will stand beside you
Will you stand with me, dig your feet into
The earth, cuz she’s worth
Somebody to catch her
Let’s join together and
Here’s the video:
National Bullying Prevention month is sponsored by Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center. National Unity Day, when people across the country unite to send a message of support to students who have been bullied, is scheduled for Wednesday, October 9, but since I don’t work on Wednesdays, we’ll be moving the date for our school. We will encourage everyone to wear orange (and will have options for kids who don’t have any orange clothing or who forget.)
Check here for lots of ideas about how your school can participate in Unity Day, and to download posters (in English and Spanish) and an informational flyer. You can also follow Pacer on Facebook. Here’s the elementary poster, but there’s one for older kids too.
I’m not just a pretty faceI’ve got something more to sayIt doesn’t matter what the mirror seesHow I look does not defineWho I am it’s what’s insideI’ll be anything I want to beYou can’t take that away from meI’m not perfect but I wouldn’t wanna changeCuz perfect is so boring anyway
A great bullying prevention song to use with younger children is Howard B. Wigglebottom’s Be Brave, Be Bold, which goes along with the book Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies, which is available in hardcopy book and online. The link will also lead you to the book, posters, and activities. Check out Brave, Bold First Graders to see how we use this book in our first grade bullying unit.