Integrated Academic & Character Development Program

How the Program Works (Program Methods)

Learning for Life features grade-appropriate, theme-oriented lesson plans to be used in the classroom to enhance and support the core curriculum.  Lessons are designed to be conducted by the classroom teachers in conjunction with the core curriculum. The Learning for Life curriculum is research based and our content team has uniquely blended character development traits into lessons that are aligned to core curriculum standards in all 50 states. This enables students to practice and reinforce core curriculum topics and skills while learning critical character development and life skills.

Learning for Life is an action-learning process and uses teaching techniques such as role-playing, small-group discussions, reflective and moral dilemma exercises and hands-on activities.  The reflective portion of each lesson is the pivotal point at which youth have the opportunity to think about what they’ve learned and integrate the experience into real life.  Each lesson will have a specific theme; we suggest that at least one lesson be used each week.

Included within each lesson plan is:

The activities in each lesson are easily related to one or more core curriculum subjects and should be helpful in meeting your school district’s developmental guidelines/standards, as well as state and national standards.

Early Childhood contains 58 lesson plans. Grades K-6 contain 61 lesson plans each. Grades 7-8 contain 44 lesson plans each and the high school section includes two books of lesson planning materials.

Lessons are designed to reinforce academic, social, ethical, and character development skills in various areas, such as critical and creative thinking, conflict resolution, decision making, interpersonal relationships, practical life skills, self-esteem, writing and language arts, citizenship and personal fitness.

Family/Home Activity:  Every lesson plan has a family/home activity.  This is a character-building lesson that the student takes home to do with a parent or guardian.  The family/home activity reinforces the lesson that was done in the classroom and gives parents/guardians an opportunity to participate in the character development and success of their child.  These activities can be found in the student workbook.

Recognition Plan:

Learning for Life offers a recognition plan for youth that will motivate:

Recognition plans include charts either for the wall or the desk, stickers, medals and downloadable certificates.  There are brightly colored peel-off stickers that relate to the lesson plan themes in each book. When the class completes a designated set of themes, the teacher places the appropriate sticker on the Honor Wall Chart (see sample below) by the name of each student who participated. In addition, students can receive additional stickers for their Individual Honor Charts and to wear on their clothing. There is a medal called the Award of Excellence for achievement above the norm. This is a medal with the program logo suspended on a red, white and blue ribbon.

Classroom Instructions:  Display the honor wall chart in a prominent part of the room and write students’ names on the chart.  As you complete a set of the lessons from your curriculum book, affix one sticker by each student’s name and put one on the student’s clothing or on their individual honor chart displayed on their desk.  There are a variety of different recognition stickers.  You’ll notice that there is a difference in the number of assigned themes and recognition stickers; this is by design to allow the instructor flexibility in selecting which recognition sticker to give.  In some instances, three or four lessons may be used in a certain area before one sticker is given.