This kindness challenge could include tracking each time a student shows an act of kindness. If you are looking for a great way to start teaching kindness in the classroom, check out these kindness activities for teaching kindness in the classroom. Each time you see or hear a student being kind, a link is added to the kindness chain. Subscribe to Teach Starter and access thousands of curriculum-aligned resources and digital learning tools. Students (and the teacher or para) may write short notes telling something they noticed that they appreciated. If you are looking for a fun, meaningful way to display kindness quotes, print on a post-it note and tape to each student’s desk. This kindness challenge could include tracking each time a student shows an act of kindness. to your classroom. Everything you need when teaching kindness is a click away. Incorporate kindness activities and kindness quotes to your classroom. At the end of the month or grading period (when report cards are dispersed), a kindness reward certificate is provided by the teacher. Create. Sandpaper words don’t make us feel good. Kindness activities and much more can be found right here! See more ideas about kindness activities, kindness, character education. I know we teachers never have any extra time, but planning and allowing students to participate in these activities is definitely not time wasted. Examples of random acts of kindness for school staff included little pot of colour flowers, encourage ‘mint’ chocolates & beginning of school year welcome notes with sheets of stickers. Make your classroom buzz! Nov 18, 2017 - Today marks the start of Random Acts of Kindness Week and my students are not always the greatest at being kind to one another. I highly recommend this activity and a, Kindness Activities: Create a KINDNESS chain, is a fun way to get students excited about intentionally being kind to others. When we did this at Christmas time I used red and green paper. Remember teaching kindness to students doesn’t have to be over the top. After about 2-3 weeks the difference will be amazing! Kindness Activities for the Classroom. Kindness Activity-The Ripple Effect Experiment Kindness Activity Ripple Effect Experiment - This experiment illustrates how a small change like dropping an object into water can cause a ripple effect. Once so many links have been earned a reward is given. When it comes to teaching, we all know that teaching our subject area content is oftentimes one of the more secondary things we do. But I encourage you all to prioritise some kindness activities … Kindness in the Classroom There are so many resources to help bring kindness into your classroom. Every student including teachers can leave an appreciation message inside it. So, if we want our children to behave kindly that means we have to set a good example. Place a box of some kind of decoration for the tree next to it. I know we teachers never have any extra time, but planning and allowing students to participate in these activities is definitely not time wasted. Each grade level includes sixteen lessons designed to be delivered in the classroom for 30-45 minutes once a week. For more kindness activities, check out Upstart’s Spreading Kindness Activity Guide and Be Buddies, Not Bullies Pinterest board, and read Gina Seymour’s How to Inspire Students to Be Compassionate Makers blog post. Here are three activities to practice kindness in the classroom: I originally used this idea to countdown the number of days until Christmas with my students. My kids get very excited about our RAK Buddy program and this is just one more way to promote kindness in your classroom. Share. Model Kindness . Glue one strip of paper so it forms a circle. If you. Create a culture of kindness in your classroom or school that will make a huge impact on your students. The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has a great website for teachers that includes lessons, videos, and kindness ideas. If you are looking for a great team-building activity, check out Save Fred. 3 Activities to Practice Kindness In the Classroom, Practice long vowel sounds with this Winter themed, Teacher life...#teachingquote #teachermemes #teac, Beginning a unit on the Arctic! 7. Literature-based lessons: Use The Kindness Quilt to teach a lesson on working together to promote kindness, and create a classroom kindness quilt of your own. Take an apple and cut it in half. A kindness chain is a fun way to get students excited about intentionally being kind to others. Activities are great for a variety of grade levels and anchor charts are included. Invest this time with your students and have fun! Before looking at three great activities to practice kindness, you should discuss what kindness looks and sounds like and why it is actually important. You could use ornaments at Christmas, hearts around Valentine’s day or apples if you’re doing a unit on apples in the Fall. It may feel like our children actively do the opposite of what we say and do but, deep down, they are soaking up our example like a sponge. This is a great activity to do with younger students to model how kindness makes us feel. If you are looking for a fun, meaningful way to display kindness quotes, print on a, and tape to each student’s desk. The negative word apple actually rots and turns darker faster than the kind word apple. and much more can be found right here! Teacher Tip: Use the, below to help promote kindness. Place a box of some kind of decoration for the tree next to it. Leave several lines between each kindness example. In this day and age, I feel like it is really a big deal. The program is framed around 12 Kindness Concepts: assertiveness, caring, compassion, fairness, gratitude, integrity, … In my 20+ years of teaching in primary, I have found that if students don’t yet have a capacity for kindness and empathy, they may have difficulty navigating the complex social situations that arise every day in the classroom. Speak kindly, model considerate behavior. Filed Under: Literacy Tagged With: books, classroom management. Nov 5, 2020 - How to teach kids about kindness, empathy and compassion. It seems, more and more, we need to focus on character traits and helping our students make decisions that go beyond learning that 2+2=4. Whether you’re celebrating a week-long kindness themed week at your school or you’re looking for kindness activities to complete with just your class, I’ve got you covered! For this reason, I've decided to start a 28-day Kindness Challenge in my classroom tomorrow in honor of #RAKWeek2017. You can choose just a few acts of kindness from the hearts, try to complete one kindness heart each day, or challenge your kids to complete as many kindness hearts as they can. They might say it feel rough, pokey, hard, itchy. This activity was created to go with the book book The Lion and The Mouse. They make us feel good. Apr 10, 2019 - Happy Random Acts of Kindness Week! Now, give the students some sandpaper and have them describe it. Teaching kindness in the classroom is essential especially in classrooms across the world. Partner Up. It’s so neat to watch and experience! Create The Kindness Club in your classroom. After a few days you’ll start noticing that the negative word apple is turning more brown that the other apple. Show them some cotton balls and have them describe them. FREE Kindness Activity. Kindness Activities Classroom Activities Classroom Freebies Educational Activities. Teaching kindness in the classroom starts with you dear teacher! , you can change each quote as the school year progresses. When people say negative words to us they take drops out of our bucket. 114 shares. Place half the apple in an airtight, clear container like a mason jar. My students love reading new quotes and by having a different quote throughout the school year, they really learn and apply the quote to different situations. We are all so busy and it’s so hard to cram everything in. I suggest not having them write their names on the decoration because that only creates competition and may make some students feel frustrated if they haven’t gotten any ornament yet. The Kindness Curriculum is a free 24-lesson guide designed to help pre-k and kindergarten students attend to their emotions, self-regulate, and care for themselves and others. At the end of every week all the message could be read out aloud in … The reward could be whatever you choose and doesn’t have to be pricey. Each time a student is caught doing something nice for someone else, they get to go put an ornament/decoration … How to use a kindness tree: Set up an empty tree somewhere in your home or classroom. Author. That’s why we need to be careful what kind of words we say to others. Kindness Hearts Activities and Kindness Printables. The results will … If you are counting down to Christmas and begin Dec. 1 you will need 24 strips. It could be an act of kindness, helpfulness, fairness, etc. Here are a few of my favorites: Intentionally plan activities and lessons that offer students a chance to work together, practicing being kind and supportive of each other. It’s so neat to watch and experience! Use this as an opportunity to teach responsibility and encourage students to keep up with their punch cards, Everyone loves to be a part of a cool club! Simply place a box or basket with small sheets of paper near it. Amongst the reading, writing and math activities, teaching kindness in the classroom can make a huge difference to your classroom community. Integrate questions about kindness into your daily classroom routine. If we hear more negative words than we hear kind words in a day, eventually our bucket will be empty. With this in mind, here are 4 ways to encourage more kindness in your classroom so that you and your children benefit: 1. This kindness challenge could include tracking each time a student shows an act of kindness. Hello … Each act of kindness receives a "punch" on each student's punch card. However, you can use a countdown chain to countdown to other event such as Spring break or the end of the year. You may choose to conduct a teacher-lead lesson with one of the anchor charts and then provide students with a copy allowing them to complete the anchor chart. Laugh with your students and listen attentively when they have something to tell you. Make a big deal out of little acts of kindness such … Everything you need when teaching kindness is a click away. Be sure to incorporate read aloud and other texts that promote kindness. Remember teaching kindness to students doesn’t have to be over the top. Use our Random Acts of Kindness calendar with your students for the month. Other ways to promote a positive culture around the school was to display kindness quotes in … In the blog post “Resources for Creating a Radically Compassionate Classroom,” I share resources for classroom walls and strategies and activities that promote a compassionate learning space, one that supports inclusion of all students. An appreciation box can be set up and placed at the back of the classroom with a pad of sticky notes attached. Teacher Tip: Use the punch cards below to help promote kindness. Kindness Role Playing: Children need practice being kind, especially if these examples are not evident in their lives. Acknowledge kindness publicly whenever you see it. in your classroom. Nov 9, 2019 - Explore Cathy Zirilli's board "Kindness in the Classroom", followed by 200 people on Pinterest. Now that students understand what kindness looks and sounds like and why it matters, you can get them practicing! Use it for any theme! I want to share this FREE Kindness Compliments activity with you in hopes that it will help spread some good ol' TLC in your classroom. Children enjoy listening to stories. They may lack conflict resolution strategies, and you’ll likely spend much of your teaching day mediating disagreements. This is a big responsibility. I absolutely LOVE spreading kindness in (and out) of my classroom! In lieu of the need for teaching materials that foster kindness and compassion, teacher authors from around the globe have come together to offer FREE classroom materials for teachers. Place the other half of the apple in another airtight, clear container. Discuss with students that if only words can cause this much change to an apple, what apple to a person? Check out these other posts for more classroom fun! Cut apart each kindness example so there is one kindness example on each strip of paper. Now you have two circles linked together. Summary: The Kindness in the Classroom® program was created to integrate intentional kindness skill building instruction with the development of social and emotional competencies. My students love reading new quotes and by having a different quote throughout the school year, they really learn and apply the quote to different situations. Of course, one of the easiest ways to encourage kindness in your classroom is by modeling it with your students every day. Teaching kindness in the classroom starts with you dear teacher! Use it for any theme! Take a tube of toothpaste and have students take turns squeezing some of the toothpaste out into a bowl. Random Acts of Kindness Week (16-23 February 2020), is a whole week dedicated to being kind. Classroom Kindness Activities *Giving a book to her ‘Mission Possible’ recipient* Being kind to others is something that everyone should be doing every day. Elesa Swirgsdin. Dip the ice cr. Cotton ball words are kind words. Each time a student is caught doing something nice for someone else, they get to go put an ornament/decoration on the tree. We are focusing on kindness for the whole year in my classroom and it has been great. Here’s another adorable way to incorporate kindness into your holiday celebrations. Stick another strip of paper inside the circle and glue that strip. Beginning January 20th, 2017, you can head over to Teachers Pay Teachers and type #kindnessnation and/or #weholdthesetruths in the search bar. Each time you see or hear a student being kind, a link is added to the kindness chain. Activities for Teaching Kindness in the Classroom. Be sure to model and give many examples of what you expect. Why not call out those great acts and discuss why we need kindness every day? Teaching kindness in the classroom is essential especially in classrooms across the world. Each student is given a challenge sheet with 28 ways they can be kind at school. Everyone loves to be a part of a cool club! It doesn’t matter how big or small an act of kindness is, it’s never a waste of time. Here’s another example from Kristina that could be used any time of year! Another way to spread kindness in the classroom is to do a Bravo Box. We will feel sad, empty and negative. I highly recommend this activity and a printable resource that can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. With Random Acts of Kindness week fast approaching (February, 12th), what a wonderful opportunity to focus on kindness in your classroom. Students will take turns each saying one or two kind words to the kind word apple like: beautiful, sweet, lovely. They will say it is impossible. Kindness is a very important concept to teach and practice with your students. Kids will enjoy the challenge of completing the acts of kindness and will grow socially and emotionally, while others will appreciate the kind gestures. As students continue to practice identifying and practicing kindness in our daily classroom activities, I continue to use Charlie the Caterpillar as a mentor text. That way students can still see the apples but they can’t come up and mess the experiment up by speaking negative words to the kind word apple (You know you have a student or two who would try to do that!). Once so many links have been earned a reward is given. You could use ornaments at Christmas, hearts around Valentine’s day or apples if you’re doing a unit on apples in the Fall. This activity might seem crazy but I promise I have done it multiple times and it actually does work! Such kindness activities for elementary students are to encourage children and have them open up their views in front of everyone. And, while being kind is a simple thing, teaching children about kindness and the importance of being kind is as crucial as teaching them their maths facts! They should write their name on the front of the bucket clearly. How to Teach Kindness in the Preschool Classroom. Ask them to share memories of acts of kindness as well as unkindness. Their relationships start to morph into half-sibling rivalry, half my way or no way. It’s that time of year where I have to whip out my bag of tricks and start teaching kindness in the classroom. Create The Kindness Club in your classroom. Just make sure you are intentionally promoting and modeling kindness when teaching kindness to students. Remember teaching kindness to students doesn’t have to be over the top. Print or write examples of kindness on a piece of paper. But in our society where everything is often rushed and everyone is so busy, sometimes kindness gets forgotten! This isn’t the first time I’ve written about kindness. If there's one thing the world needs more of - it's kindness! Children enjoy listening to stories. Each act of kindness receives a "punch" on each student's punch card. It never fails, my class starts to bicker and become bossy towards one another. Kindness…it’s kind of a big deal! See more ideas about kindness activities, random acts of kindness, kindness. Kindness in the Classroom is a skills promotion program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. At the end of the month or grading period (when report cards are dispersed), a kindness reward certificate is provided by the teacher. This example was shared on Instagram by polka.dots.please. I also shared how we focused on kindness during the Christmas season.But I honestly don’t think I can write enough on this topic. Some teachers even use real buckets and have students drop paper notes into real buckets in their classroom. It includes 16 different kindness tasks for your students to do for others. Nov 4, 2020 - Explore Paulina Cooper's board "" Kindness " Activities for pre-k" on Pinterest. Print off a paper bucket and have each student decorate one. Start the day with a friendly greeting for each student. Spending just a few minutes on it at the end of class can boost everyone’s mood, give students a chance to publicly appreciate one another, and send students home riding a wave of positivity and kindness. Here are some ideas to start conversations in your school or classroom and establish kindness as the norm for your students: Talk to students about what they think it means to be kind. If you laminate and use a command strip, you can change each quote as the school year progresses. March 6, 2019 in Lesson Plans, Teaching Ideas. They might describe them as fluffy, soft, light. Invest this time with your students and have fun! Teaching kindness in the classroom should start with you demonstrating the type of. Consider 10 minutes of extra recess time or free drawing time. Students will look at you like you’re crazy! Be sure to incorporate read aloud and other, Intentionally plan activities and lessons that offer students a chance to work together, practicing being kind and supportive of each other. Give them simple scenarios they can act out or play a kindness game using Kindness Cards. Continue adding however many strips you need to countdown to your event. Keep reading to get your own printable kindness hearts activity and more great ideas for random acts of kindness week. The elementary school edition uses free-standing lessonsto promote social and emotional learning. The reward could be whatever you choose and doesn’t have to be pricey. Then we will pass around the negative words apple and students will speak a negative word to that apple like: stupid, ugly, dumb. Label the first jar “kind words” and label the second jar “Negative words”. In the same way, no activity that promotes kindness in your classroom is a waste of time! Teaching kindness in the classroom should start with you demonstrating the type of kindness you expect from your students. 10 Kindness Lessons and Activities for Elementary School. Here are some kindness activities you can do with your class: Random Acts of Kindness Calendar. Everyday the students will speak kind or unkind words to each apple. It’s important that we explicitly teach empathy, kindness, and compassion to our students. If you are looking for a great team-building activity, check out, . Students unknowingly perform acts of altruism all the time by modeling their teachers and parents. I usually will take one apple and pass it around the classroom. Kindness Calendars are a wonderful way to encourage intentional acts of kindness. I created a resource that has literacy activities to support reading comprehension while still building on our social skill of KINDNESS. It shares on a simple act of kindness can have a ripple effect. Have students practice filling up other peoples bucket by gluing notes onto a friends bucket. I was part of a kindness blog hop a few years back, where we all shared ways we have taught our young children how to be kind. There are several books you can read to help students understand the bucket concept. Consider 10 minutes of extra recess time or free drawing time. Just make sure you are intentionally promoting and modeling kindness when teaching kindness to students. Create a culture of kindness in your classroom or school that will make a huge impact on your students. 3 Easy Kindness Activities For Your Classroom. At the end of the month or grading period (when report cards are dispersed), a kindness reward certificate is provided by the teacher. Developed and researched by the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Kindness Curriculum has shown to have a positive impact on academic performance, peer relationships, and teacher-perceived social … See more ideas about kindness, kindness activities, character education. Kick-Start Kindness: Activities 1. Next time a student is speaking negatively ask them if they are using cotton ball words or sandpaper words. You can use the demonstrations below to help students of any age to visualize kindness in a concrete way. Talk about how kind words add drops into our inner buckets. After I pass the apple around then I place them on a high shelf. They make us feel good, full, satisfied. You know your students and are best able to judge your student’s needs. This fun and easy activity will encourage your students to help one another. Each week also includes an optional project to enhance the lesson. They are negative or unkind words. The lessons include 12 kindness concepts which, when used consistently, provide students a scaffold to build the necessary skills to move from self-awareness to action. Use this as an opportunity to teach responsibility and encourage students to keep up with their punch cards. How to use a kindness tree: Set up an empty tree somewhere in your home or classroom. Tell them the toothpaste is like our words, once they leave our mouths they can’t be put back. We need to model it, teach it and live it! Wonderful activities to help kids practice every day kindness and random acts of kindness at home, in the classroom and in the community. After a bit, ask them to put the toothpaste from the bowl back into the tube. you expect from your students. Be sure to model and give many examples of what you expect. Print or copy the piece of paper onto bright colored construction paper. Check out this coo, Merry Christmas everyone #christmas2020 #christmas, These simple Build A Snowman kits are a great gift, We decorated Christmas trees today. I think it has a lot to do with the amount of time they have spent together. Try the writing prompts below to encourage students to share their … , teach it and live it counting down to Christmas and begin Dec. 1 you will need 24 strips difference...: books, classroom management kindly that means we have to be over the.... Ways to encourage children and have students take turns squeezing some of toothpaste... Apple like: beautiful, sweet, lovely big deal to our students apple what! Ll likely spend much of your teaching day mediating disagreements encourage children and have them it! Skill of kindness as well as unkindness bring kindness into your classroom or school that will a... 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For each student decorate one continue adding however many strips you need when teaching kindness to students doesn ’ have. We did this at Christmas time I used red and green paper our random acts of kindness receives ``. Kindness and random acts of kindness you expect 's punch card from that... Plans, teaching kindness is a waste of time they have something to tell you great for... Best able to judge your student’s needs telling something they noticed that appreciated... Compassion to our students age, I 've decided to start a 28-day kindness challenge could tracking. Classroom '', followed by 200 people on Pinterest looks and sounds like why! Countdown chain to countdown to other event such as Spring break or end.