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! 

Student Sightings!

One of the hilarious/awkward/fun parts of being a teacher in a local school is that you unexpectedly run in your students out and about.



Initially, this excited me to no end, mostly because I'm constantly delighted to see people I know just in real life. Most of my childhood was spent involved in organizations that were not local to my home, so this didn't happen very often.



When I started working at Upper Dublin, I started counting how often I saw my students or their families in local stores, at events, etc.



(Not surprisingly) I lost count pretty quickly.



The most awkward situation was a dinner out with friends to celebrate my long-term sub assignment. We went to a hibachi restaurant--you know, the kind with the big table where you sit around with people that you don't necessarily know?



Yeah. A student and her mom sat right across from us.



Over the long weekend I ran some errands and ran into two students at two stores, one right after another, in one day.



It's still kind of fun, as long as the interactions can be fleeting and casual and I'm not picking my nose or doing anything else inherently embarrassing. Grocery shopping and/or returning books at the bookstore are pretty tame.


Let's hope it stays that way!