National Bullying Prevention Week/Month

October is National Bullying Prevention Month: "Sponsored by the PACER Center—a parent center for families of children and young adults with disabilities—and cosponsored by NEA, the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education, and National PTA, this event encourages communities to work together to increase awareness of the prevalence and impact of bullying on children".-NEA website

It seems there are plenty of specific weeks dedicated to bullying prevention depending on what organization you are looking at - many of them seem to be in October and others dispersed throughout other months.  Regardless of the time you chose to teach a bullying unit, I'm sure most of us out there find it an important issue to address.  Here are some resources designed to help teach kids about bullying.

1. PACER Center - This site has 2 separate week-long comprehensive educational toolkits geared towards elementary and middle/high school.

• Elementary includes lesson plans, role plays, coloring book, activities, suggested reading list, etc.  Connect kids to the student-centered website: http://www.pacerkidsagainstbullying.org/

• Middle/High school also includes daily lesson plans and activities.    The student-centered website for these kids is: http://www.pacerteensagainstbullying.org/

2. Peaceful Schools International - a whole list of downloadable resources and websites.  In particular I like the first download - 50 Ideas for Anti-Bullying Week (Anti-bullying alliance).

3. Stop Bullying Now! - A very kid friendly site for both students and adults.  Complete with information, videos, games about how to recognize, stop or report bullying.