Caring, Sharing, and Preparing Linky Party #2

Welcome back for a second round of Caring, Sharing, and Preparing.  I am so glad you are here!

(If you missed the details on this linky party, feel free to check them out here.)

I am grateful to be under the leadership of a school district and wonderful principal who see the value in and prioritize character education.  We have 5 district-wide character traits: respect, kindness, responsibility, honesty, and perseverance.

We are currently focusing on kindness, which brings me to the topic of this post!  I want to tell you about some kindness activities we have been doing in our classroom lately, in hopes that you might find a book, video, or an idea that you will be interested in sharing with your students.

Let me start with some amazing children's picture books that we read and discussed in our classroom.  Each of these books correlate with the kindness theme.

Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson

Be Polite and Kind by Cheri Meiners

We talked quite a bit about how kindness has a ripple effect.  These videos are FABULOUS for getting this point across to young kiddos.

Color Your World with Kindness by A Better World

I have watched this video below so many times over the past few years and to this day, I cannot watch it without getting choked up.  (This is why Mrs. Unger randomly walks around the room and pretends to be busy doing something else when this video is played, hehe.)

Kindness Boomerang - "One Day" by Life Vest Inside

All About Kindness by Harry Kindergarten Music

Naturally, we are a bucket-filling classroom.  This picture was taken before school started, but now each of these buckets have a student photo on them.  My kiddos can show kindness in two ways: 1) by placing a "warm fuzzy" (craft pom pom ball) in someone else's bucket or 2) by writing them a kind note.  We use some freebie notes from Teaching Mrs. T, but there are SO MANY wonderful freebie notes on Teachers Pay Teachers that I am sure you can find the perfect one for you.  Just be sure to leave a kind thank you message to the creator!  :)

Of course, we also read all the bucket-filling books that Mrs. Unger owns:

Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud

How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer

Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children by Carol McCloud and Katherine Martin

One of my favorite kindness activities is called the "Compliment Car Wash."  Unfortunately, I only took a video (no photos) and said student names aloud, so I cannot share the video.  But basically, this is what you do:

1) Have the students line up in two parallel lines facing each other, but be sure they leave some space between the two lines.

2) One student at a time walks between the two lines, while the rest of the class randomly says compliments about that person.

Of course, all the students are talking over each other, but they truly LOVE this activity, which is evident by the smiles on their faces.  It feels good to know you are receiving so many kind compliments from your peers!

Now it is YOUR TURN!  Have you written a blog post recently that could fall under one of these categories below?  I am betting you have.  Be sure to link it up here as a way to share great ideas with others.

Grab the images you need and link up below!

As always, thank you for stopping by!  :)