Each Kindness

This is a quote from one of my favorite books, Each Kindness, by Jacqueline Woodson.

I read that book after reading Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud.  (Ask your child about that book.  It's the basis for rule #4 in our class: Be a bucket filler.)  I try to promote bucket filling and kindness every year with my students.

If you've never read Each Kindness before, you should.  This book pulls at my heartstrings! In the story, Maya is a new student at a school. She tries to become friends with the students in her class but they are mean to her. She eventually switched schools. After she left, the teacher did a lesson with the students comparing the ripples of a pebble in water to the effects of being kind to others. One of the girls Maya had tried to become friends with was sad she wasn't nice back to her. Their teacher said, "Each kindness makes the world a little better."

After that I did the heart lesson. 

I cut out a beautiful magenta heart. The students loved it. I told them to pretend that was their heart. I said, "Watch what happens to your heart when people say mean things to you." I said some things they have heard before like, "I don't like you," "You're not my friend," "I don't like your shoes!" Each time I said something mean, I crumpled up the heart. Every time I've done this lesson, the students are in SHOCK at what happens to the heart. I then say, "We can make things better by saying things like 'I'm sorry,' or 'I do like your sweater,' or 'Will you play with me tomorrow?' " As I said those things, I slowly unfolded the heart. I said, "We can say things that make things better, but our hearts will never forget, just like the crinkles in our paper heart."  I hung the paper in our classroom to serve as a reminder.

 

My final kindness lesson involved a tube of toothpaste.

I explained to the students to think of the tube as our mouths and the toothpaste as the words that come out of our mouths. I repeated some of the mean things I said earlier, and as I did, I squeezed the toothpaste out of the tube. I asked the students if they thought we could get the toothpaste back in the tube. Some said yes, others said no. We tried using a fork, but we were not successful. 

I said, "Our words are like the toothpaste, once they come out of our mouths, we can not put them back. We can't take back what we said."

The point of all of the lessons hit home with them today.  It was extremely powerful.

I hope you all have a great weekend!
Thanks for stopping by!

~Stacey~