Kindness Chain
Well, another fast week has seemed to pass us by! I can't believe we will be on Christmas break in just over 2 weeks...there's still so much to do! But I'll be honest, I hope next week goes quickly because I'm going to go see Star Wars next Friday!
Anyway...it was a fast week but a productive one as well! Overall, it was a good week with a few highs and lows. My colleagues and I had some fun creating a video to model good and bad writing behaviors. Here is a link--hope you enjoy :-) The audio is rather soft, so you might need to turn your volume up. I would imagine you can guess which example it is...
In other news, we had some good learning opportunities for treating others with kindness during this holiday season. The timing for everything is actually perfect! Wednesday was a bit of a low day of the week for some of the students in terms of being respectful towards each other. There was an announcement from a couple of 4th graders that came over the speakers in the morning. The announcement detailed how this should be a season to show kindness towards others and encouraged the students to create "Kindness Chains" (kind of like a "pay it forward" system) where doing something kind for someone can lead to that person showing kindness to another person, and so on. I don't think the announcement really sank in for some of the students that morning because they were being rather rude to each other. So during our TRIBES time, I gathered the students together and we made a kindness chain, in which the students had to say something kind or something they appreciated about another student (I know, it doesn't quite have the same meaning since it was a "required" kindness, but it was an opportunity to practice). The day improved a little bit, but there were still those select few students who struggled with showing kindness. On my way home last night, I was thinking about how a visual might be helpful for them, and I thought of the old red and green paper chains I used to make when I was a kid....bingo! So at our TRIBES time today, I gave each student a strip of paper and explained that each of them has the ability to show kindness, so everyone starts out with one link in the chain. The kids put their names on the chain and a sticker to decorate it with. Then we linked them together. I proceeded to explain that we will use the chain to decorate the ceiling, and the students will be in charge of making it longer by being caught showing kindness. I'm hopeful that this will help encourage some of those struggling students to be more mindful of how they are treating others. Here's a picture of our start to the chain:
Anyway...it was a fast week but a productive one as well! Overall, it was a good week with a few highs and lows. My colleagues and I had some fun creating a video to model good and bad writing behaviors. Here is a link--hope you enjoy :-) The audio is rather soft, so you might need to turn your volume up. I would imagine you can guess which example it is...
In other news, we had some good learning opportunities for treating others with kindness during this holiday season. The timing for everything is actually perfect! Wednesday was a bit of a low day of the week for some of the students in terms of being respectful towards each other. There was an announcement from a couple of 4th graders that came over the speakers in the morning. The announcement detailed how this should be a season to show kindness towards others and encouraged the students to create "Kindness Chains" (kind of like a "pay it forward" system) where doing something kind for someone can lead to that person showing kindness to another person, and so on. I don't think the announcement really sank in for some of the students that morning because they were being rather rude to each other. So during our TRIBES time, I gathered the students together and we made a kindness chain, in which the students had to say something kind or something they appreciated about another student (I know, it doesn't quite have the same meaning since it was a "required" kindness, but it was an opportunity to practice). The day improved a little bit, but there were still those select few students who struggled with showing kindness. On my way home last night, I was thinking about how a visual might be helpful for them, and I thought of the old red and green paper chains I used to make when I was a kid....bingo! So at our TRIBES time today, I gave each student a strip of paper and explained that each of them has the ability to show kindness, so everyone starts out with one link in the chain. The kids put their names on the chain and a sticker to decorate it with. Then we linked them together. I proceeded to explain that we will use the chain to decorate the ceiling, and the students will be in charge of making it longer by being caught showing kindness. I'm hopeful that this will help encourage some of those struggling students to be more mindful of how they are treating others. Here's a picture of our start to the chain:
Mindfulness thought of the week (thanks to Tom J Deters and the ProYou podcast...I altered a Facebook post from the other day): Be a better person than you were yesterday.
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