Leadership Skills Activity Project for Student Council - Leader for the Day

Challenge your StuCo students to plan and teach a leadership skill-building lesson activity for the day!

They choose the skill -- from active listening and better communication to team-building and problem-solving to spreading kindness and practicing gratitude skills.

This project kit transfers the lesson planning to your student leaders or officers and, believe me, they will LOVE it!

What used to be “game day” is now an authentic day of multi-faceted learning where your students are in charge!

The resource comes in both print PDF and digital for Google Slides.

Greatness is sharing with others something about which you’re passionate.

No better way to learn about leadership than to teach it! Turn one day a week into a student-planned and student-led leadership activity day with this no-brainer, no-planning-for-you project.

After leading your students through a sample lesson on nonverbal communication, provide your students with the lesson directions to be a model in creating and leading their own.

Students, then, sign up for their “day” and identify a leadership skill of focus like problem-solving, group decision-making, communication, kindness- whatever they see as a need for the group!

You serve as their consultant as they utilize the real-world skills of brainstorming, preparing, facilitating, and reflecting on the lesson they taught their classmates.

Students can:

• Sign-up individually, in pairs, or in small groups to lead their lesson
• Lead one class per quarter, a semester, or a year
• Use this to make up for missing another component of your class
• Step and lead whenever they feel the group needs a reboot

Included in this complete project kit:

• Sample Lesson handout and Exit Ticket to provide a model
• Lesson Ideas handout to aid in students’ brainstorming
• Activity Day Planning Sheet to guide their lesson development
• Reflection & Rubric sheet to bring closure and next steps
• List of recommended books with leadership warm-ups and activities, perfect for middle and high school students
• Both printable PDF and digital for Google Slides

Tips from my Classroom:

During first semester, I lead formal leadership lessons, which we call Activity Days. This is when we focus on specific leadership skills, like Public Speaking / Communication, Teamwork, Creativity, or Relationship Building, whenever we have a spare day in our busy fall and winter schedule, but come second semester, students take charge.

By mid-year, my students are familiar with the routine of Activity Day and they are now more comfortable leading their classmates. Plus, our schedule is much more open with fewer school-wide activities to plan.

Students sign up for their Activity Day on our class calendar so we have one or two Activity Days a week scheduled throughout second semester. Then, it's up to them to plan their day!

Students love to bring in the memorable lessons and activities they've experienced in their youth groups, leadership camps, and elsewhere, and also love being in charge of teaching a skill they see as needed in the group, in the school, or in life!

My students look forward to this every year and yours will too!

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This listing is for one license for regular, non-commercial classroom use by a single teacher only. Commercial use like online teaching (ex. Outschool) or sharing with other teachers (ex. shared drive, in a Facebook group, in a professional development training) is strictly prohibited.

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