Personal Assets: Part 1 – Family (Grades 3–5)
Personal Assets: Part 1 – Family from the There Is No Me Without Community unit guides students to recognize their families as sources of strength, knowledge, and care. Grounded in Ethnic Studies and Social Emotional Learning, this lesson helps students shift from deficit-based narratives toward an asset-based mindset rooted in cultural wealth, ancestry, and community connection.
Designed for grades 3–5, this 30–35 minute lesson engages students through GLAD Inquiry Charts, discussion, movement, and reflection. Students analyze family images and artifacts, share personal stories, and collaboratively develop hypotheses about the assets all people and communities possess. The lesson intentionally affirms many forms of family, including chosen family, LGBTQ+ families, multigenerational households, foster and kinship care, while reinforcing belonging and care for difference.
Educators support students in naming family-given assets such as values, skills, traditions, resilience, and ways of caring for one another. Through inquiry, students practice reflection, perspective-taking, and academic language while strengthening identity and agency.
What’s Included
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Detailed, step-by-step lesson plan
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GLAD Inquiry Chart and Learning Log strategies
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Asset-based vocabulary and movement integration
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Structured student discourse and reflection prompts
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Optional timeline work to extend learning
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Alignment with WAESN Elements of Liberation and OSPI SEL Standards
Why Educators Use This Lesson
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Centers families as sources of strength rather than deficit
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Builds belonging while honoring difference
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Supports SEL, identity development, and Ethnic Studies goals
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Flexible for classroom, advisory, or community-centered spaces
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Designed to be revisited and built upon across the unit
This lesson is ideal for educators seeking developmentally appropriate, community-rooted Ethnic Studies instruction that affirms students’ lived experiences and cultivates collective care, reflection, and agency.