‘Don’t Be a Wooly Bully’ Lesson Plan (Video)

This lesson plan is designed to help teachers present animal rights issues to their students. If you’re an educator, please feel free to adapt this material to fit your needs, and contact us if you need help incorporating this activity into your curriculum.

Suggested grade levels: Kindergarten–6th grade

Type of resource: Lesson plan, video, and activity

Objectives: To understand what happens to animals who are used for their wool and how we can help them by refusing to purchase wool products

Issues covered: empathy for animals, wool, animals used for skins

While some people might think that wool comes from sheep who are just “getting a haircut,” the reality is much worse. PETA’s international exposé has revealed that wool industry workers stomped on, kicked, and broke the necks of sheep who were being recklessly sheared, and lambs cried out for their mothers as they were being thrown around like inanimate objects and pinned down—all this violence just so that we can buy a product that we don’t even need.

Luckily, there are many humane alternatives to wool—teach your students that opting for these instead is one of the easiest ways they can be kind to animals.

Use the video below to show your students how smart, unique, and sensitive sheep are:

Video: Animal Aid

Follow up with an activity in which your students create a cute sheep using paper, markers, and cotton balls and write a message such as “I’m not a wooly bully! I’m wool-free!” Then hang them around the classroom. Be sure to let your students take their “sheep” home after they’ve been displayed—that way they can share what they’ve learned with their parents.