Directly target empathy
See our Top Games That Teach Empathy list for more empathy-focused tools.
Peekapak
Each Peekapak topic (including empathy) consists of an introductory storybook, eight activities to do in the classroom, and eight activities to send home for kids to do with their parents. Lessons for grades K–5 help kids explore SEL concepts from a variety of angles.
Florence
This incredibly relatable story about navigating adult love and life has some mature themes, but the controls in the game are mapped so well to emotions that kids learn how to traverse the nuances of fresh relationships in a compassionate way.
Build empathy in all subjects
For ELA classrooms
Pictello
Have students use this storytelling app to upload pictures, videos, and their voices to illustrate an emotional experience in their lives or to describe likes and dislikes. Through sharing, students will begin to see what it’s like for their peers.
Facing History and Ourselves
Use Facing History’s resources to discuss and reflect on students’ experiences and beliefs about tough topics such as racism and prejudice. Students can also create and share bio-poems as part of a community unit.
For math classrooms
Pattern Shapes
Ask students about personal situations and have them use the app to construct a depiction of their feelings. Students can annotate the design, and after that a discussion can help students learn from each other while they study geometric shapes.
Spent
Illustrate the crippling financial quandaries of poverty. Have students discuss their play, using correct finance terms such as “minimum wage” and “inflation,” and host an honest talk about how Spent oversimplifies the issue of choice.
For science classrooms
TinkerCAD
Use this 3D-design tool to address people’s needs. Students can research societal problems (such as water quality or climate change). Once they build understanding and empathy, they can go through design processes to create a prototype solution.
WWF Free Rivers
This augmented-reality app immerses students in a river ecosystem. Students will gain perspective as they learn how rivers affect people and wildlife. Have students discuss the pros and cons of building dams for historical societies and for their own community.
For social studies classrooms
Teaching Tolerance
Videos and photo essays depict life experiences around the world. Use the Mix It Up activities to have students identify social boundaries at school, and then have them use primary-source documents to find similar boundaries in history.
Global Oneness Project
This site showcases global life stories. Let students view the videos on climate change or sustainability, and then have them go out and create their own videos capturing a cultural experience in school or their own community.
For all classrooms
Shadow Puppet EDU
Start a project where students search for images directly in the app (from art museums or NASA) to tell a story of the personal connection they have to the book they read, the organism they observed, or an event in history. Share as a class.
Skype
Skype is great for communicating with students from around the world. Hook up with another class and have students share their stories, solve an engineering solution together, or practice another language to gain perspective about other cultures.
Engage families
- Explore our Movies That Inspire Empathy and TV That Inspires Empathy lists to share with parents.
- Parent questions? Point them to our Character Strengths and Life Skills page for answers.
[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on Common Sense Education.]
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