The Great Kindness Challenge at Jefferson School
I am so proud of all of our children as they took part in and learned so much centered around the theme of KINDNESS. Thank you to our faculty and staff for the hard work and effort in planning for a week long celebration of KINDNESS and modeling for our children how important being kind truly is. Our motto "Work Hard, Be Kind" is hung up prominently in our foyer. It's a simple but beautiful message that our children will take with them forever. Below is a summation of what each grade level worked on during the week of Kindness. Thank you for your continued support at home in developing children that truly WORK HARD and are KIND!
KINDERGARTEN
The Kindergarten had a great time celebrating Kindness Week! We worked on many projects and read several books about being kind. Please stop by our classrooms to see our kindness chain. We drew pictures of ways we can be kind to others. It has been so rewarding to see all of the kind actions that have taken place in our classrooms. We have been recording those acts on our "100 Acts of Kindness" hearts. It is amazing to see how many acts of kindness we demonstrated. Our chart is just about filled! We read Be Kind and worked on several projects about the text. We learned that just one act of kindness can spread to many!
1ST GRADE
In first grade for kindness week we wrote letters to someone who we wanted to thank for being kind to us. Some of us wrote to police officers or firemen, others wrote to mom, dad, a sibling, a friend, our principal, nurse, secretary or a teacher. We also created hearts to hang all around our classroom with things that we thought were acts of kindness. Our flowers on the bulletin board have different ways to show kindness on each petal. Every one of us had a great time reading stories about kindness, and working to fill out our kindness challenge sheets. We have been continuing our acts of kindness even though the week has come to an end. We can hardly wait for kindness week next year! Ms. Neats
We began our week discussing all the wonderful acts of kindness on our kindness checklist. We then came up with more acts of kindness we can do at school and at home. Then, every morning, we would "check off" what acts of kindness we did the day before on our checklist, and added additional things we did. We read books on kindness and created our own "hearts" that included acts of kindness. We also created "I-pods" by drawing "what kindness is to us" on them to help decorate our door. They had some really great ideas. I think the most important concept I talked about this week was all the feelings we feel when someone is kind to us. I find at this age, students can only relate to feelings that they can associate with themselves so it was important to bring that "self to world" connection so they understand the impact kindness can have on everyone. Ms. Lyons
2ND GRADE
This week the 2nd graders worked on many acts of kindness activities
- Read the book “Goodness Gorilla’s Chicken Soup for the Soul” Each child then wrote compliments on cut out self-portraits of the entire class.
- Read the book We are all Wonder and wrote what makes us unique and kind
- We made a booklet of what kindness acts we did each day as a reminder of the week’s challenge
- We sang “Kindness is a Muscle”
- We wrote what we liked about each one person and posted on our penguin door “Just Chilln’ with Kindness
- We created posters of Kindness
- We wrote letters to the faculty who we remember being kind to us
3RD GRADE
Third graders celebrated Kindness Week with a variety of fun and friendly activities. They worked on The Great Kindness Challenge in school and at home and enjoyed completing as many kind acts as they could in one week. Third graders listened to the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and learned many ways to spread kindness. Students then created their own “buckets” that could be filled with compliments by their classmates. Students wanted to extend kindness all around the school. They worked in small groups designing posters with inspirational quotes about kindness and displayed them in the hallway. The third graders were very eager to show kindness to the kindergarteners by reading to a younger buddy. Students also made hearts and bookmarks for kids in other classes and happily delivered them throughout the week. The school nurse, Mrs. Beaton, received a sincere thank you on a heart made out of band-aids written on by each student. Third graders also showed their appreciation to Mr. Vogt by writing him acrostic poems with words they felt described him as a principal. Students experienced how being kind made others and themselves feel happy this week.
4TH GRADE
The 4th grade rose to the "Kindness Challenge." Our fourth grade theme of "Throw Kindness Like Confetti" was embraced by all. The fourth graders discussed the many ways we can make a difference by being kind to others, both in and out of school. Students loved the opportunity to report their classmates that were "caught being kind!" When students were reported completing a kind act, they were given a post-it to write their good deed. Good deeds were then added to our door display. Some students worked cooperatively to create posters with slogans and quotes about being kind, while others created "Recipes for Kindness." Although the Kindness Challenge has come to an end, the students will carry the lessons they learned with them as they go forward.
Fourth grade had a ton of fun exploring kindness this week! On Monday we explored what true friendship looks like and named some of the qualities of true friends after viewing a New York Times video about an unusual friendship between a Burmese refugee and a boy from Georgia. Tuesday, we identified qualities of a friend and applied them to people in our class. We created friendship chains to create a visual of how much love and friendship we have in our lives. On Wednesday, we articulated what makes good friends and explored different recipes in order to create our own ‘Friendship Recipes.’ Thursday, we observed and participated in role-plays where we examined different friendship/ conflict scenarios and how they can be resolved. On Friday we acted out our skits and discussed and examined the positive and lasting effects of kindness.
5TH GRADE
One of the ways Class 5A illustrated "kindness" was through our "Acts of Kindness" door. This is where students depict their kind character by posting their generous action on a note and placing it on the door.
As a whole class, we watched a video where students drew conclusions of how to "pay it forward", and discussed that good acts aren't necessarily limited to just the present time but can and should be continued to their future, such as, by the careers paths they choose.
Finally at the completion of Kindness Week, the students grouped themselves together and created/creating posters for a display of Kindness Ads.