The following are suggestions for how lifespan and aging concepts can be integrated into elementary classroom instruction.  Classroom teachers can use these ideas to trigger other creative activities.

Language Arts and Social Studies

• Help students develop concepts of "young, younger, youngest" and old, older, oldest" by asking them to apply these terms to pictures of familiar things, such as houses, pets, trees, cars, and people.
• Ask students to make a list of activities they can or cannot do now.  Have them examine the list for activities they can or cannot do when they grow older.  Discuss growing older as a process of growth, development, and change.
• Develop a list of basic vocabulary related to aging, growth and development.  Have students make flash cards with their definitions and write sentences using the terms correctly.
• Invite older volunteers to visit class to read and discuss books which are not about growing old.
• Organize a pen pal program between children and older community residents.  After a period of time, invite the older adults to class to meet their pals.
• Replace ageist children’s books with books that provide a balanced view of aging and older people.

Math

• Develop a timeline showing the ages of students and their siblings, parents or guardians, grandparents and great-grandparents.
• Practice subtraction by asking students to subtract their age from the current year resulting in their birth year.  Repeat the exercise with students using the birth year of familiar adults such as teachers or family members (preferably who do not try to hide their age as if it is something to be ashamed of).
• Practice multiplication by asking students to figure out how many seasons or months they and others have lived.
  

Physical Education

• Invite older volunteers to physical education classes to teach young students physically active games that they played in their own childhood, such as jacks, tag, dodge ball and hop scotch.  Then have older persons explain or demonstrate what they do now for physical activity, such as dance, tennis, gardening, and racquetball.

Excerpt from Couper, D.  & Pratt, F.  Teaching about Aging: Enriching Lives across the Life Span.  National Retired Teachers Association and National Academy for Teaching and Learning about Aging, 1997.