Read Together

1. Read The Empty Pot aloud to your class.
2. Every other page or so, show your students the illustrations.
3. Ask students to point out anything in the pictures — people, flora and fauna, buildings — that look different than what they're used to seeing.
4. When you've finished reading the book, talk about the artwork. After all, Ping's story is a universal one about the importance of telling the truth. How does the artist convey Ping's Chinese countryside?
5. Ask students if they've seen similar architecture, clothing, or plants anywhere close by.
6. Have them draw a picture of what they think Ping's whole house might look like.
7. Post their artwork on your bulletin board.

Are You the One?

1. Prepare one small piece of paper for each child in your classroom.
2. On only one sheet of paper, place a big dot.
3. Fold the papers so that the dot is not visible.
4. Distribute one, folded, to each child in your class.
5. Tell the children that one piece of paper is marked and that the person who received the marked piece will have to carry out some unpleasant task for you.
6. Ask the person who received the marked paper to raise his or her hand.
7. Instead of an unpleasant task, reward that person with a sticker or other small prize.
8. Talk, as a class, about whether that person hesitated to raise his or her hand. How did the other class members feel?

1. Hold a class discussion about famous people who have demonstrated that honesty is the best policy.
2. Share stories about presidents such as George Washington, who could not tell a lie and therefore confessed that he had cut down a prized cherry tree. Or Abraham Lincoln, said to have walked miles back to a store to return incorrect change from a purchase.
3. Ask students to think of examples from their own lives in which honesty has proven the best policy.
4. Have them draw pictures of their own experience.
5. One by one, discuss each student's artwork. Talk about how they felt and how others reacted to their honesty.
6. Post their artwork on a classroom bulletin board.