Kindness Day

Something my 2nd grade level partners and I decided to do was to create an ABC Countdown to track the last 26 days of school for our students. It would offer some fun and interest to those last few days that draaaag like nothing else.

The challenge was to come up with something appealing to 8-year-olds (as opposed to 6-year-olds, where things like ABC Countdowns are the norm). 

We each put our own spin on a list, and today was Kindness Day. 

I was a little surprised at the resulting day. 

I started off the day by reading Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler! It was a silly, cute story that the kids really enjoyed. We discussed some of the acts of kindness from the story, and how we would apply them to our classroom. I challenged the kids to do as many acts of kindness as they could during the day, and I gave each one an index card to keep track. Anytime I noticed an act of kindness, they would earn a sticker. 

(Now, this is Kindness Day, not Competitive Kindness Day, so we didn't count the stickers or declare a winner. It was more a celebration of their actions.) 

The surprise? (For me at least?) 

They loved it. They couldn't get enough. They spent half their day doing kind things for me and for one another, and the other half reporting each other's acts of kindness and congratulating one another on their stickers. It made the day so pleasant, and I was thrilled to hand out probably close to two dozen stickers. 

The other surprise? 

Two of my students wrote me little notes thanking me for what I do, and I couldn't believe how much it meant to me. We only talked about kindness to peers, not necessarily to me, so it was really touching to have these two share their kindness with their little ol' teacher. 

I just may keep this going (minus the cards...just randomly hand out stickers for kindnesses). It could just make our last 15 days that much better!