Drawing on the literature and a survey of first-grade teachers, this paper provides a summary of the ways children grieve, children's ideas on death, ways to help children contend with the difficulties surrounding death, and teachers' feelings about discussing death in the classroom. Twelve teachers completed a questionnaire about how to effectively respond to children's feelings and ideas about death. Findings revealed that most of the teachers had students who had experienced a death in their family and that the teachers had discussed it privately with them. Most teachers had no training in dealing with death in the classroom, and half had not read adult or children's literature about death. Teachers suggested several ways to discuss death with children, including having children write or draw in a journal, asking school-based support teams for suggestions, telling children about personal experiences with death, and using children's literature to discuss the subject. The paper concludes with several suggestions for helping teachers discuss death with children, and lists pertinent books for teachers and for children. (Contains 17 references.) (EV)