Duration: 45-60 minutes
SPIRIT Skills:
- Emotional awareness/communication
- Empathy
- Connectedness
Brief Description:
Students connect lemonade to memories and emotions through teacher modelling and student sharing, then begin a class “Lemonade Stories” collection
How does this develop particular SPIRIT skills
- Builds emotional awareness and communication by linking taste to feelings and learning to describe emotions with appropriate words
- Strengthens empathy by listening to classmates’ memories and respecting differences in experiences
- Supports connectedness by creating a shared class story-bank that values everyone’s voice
What do we want to achieve regarding SPIRIT skill development (student understanding and/or behaviour)?
As a result of this activity, students will be able to:
- As a result of this activity, students (will be able to/understand/do …):
- Use at least two feeling words to describe a taste-linked memory (e.g., proud, comforted, excited).
- Listen without interrupting and respond with a respectful comment or question.
- Share one tradition or family connection and notice similarities/differences across the group.
Academic/Curriculum Objective connection
Narrative literacy + oral communication; using descriptive vocabulary and respectful listening.
Materials and tools needed for implementation
Teacher story/read-aloud, story prompts, emotion word bank, drawing/writing sheets.
Preparation notes
Prepare sentence stems: “I remember when…”, “It made me feel…”, “I noticed…”
Guided Questions
- “What does lemonade remind you of?”
- “How did that moment feel inside?”
- “What did you learn about your classmates from their stories?”
Stage Debriefing Questions (Optional)
- “How can words help someone feel included when they share a memory?”
Tips and Tricks for dealing with stage challenges
- Challenge: Some students struggle to share personal stories.
Tip: Offer choice: draw it, write one sentence, or share with a partner only. - Challenge: Students react negatively to others’ traditions.
Tip: Use a class norm: “Different is interesting,” and provide respectful response frames.