So as many of you may know I am a huge fan of the Reederama blog. If you don't follow her you should because she does amazing things in her library. I follow her lead on many of the lessons I teach.
I always tie Digital Citzenship into all of my lessons but I really do a focus lesson on it early in the year. That lesson is quickly approaching so I thought what better way to lead into it other than to do a lesson on KINDNESS. Following some recommendations online I have chosen two books to use with my first and fourth graders. They are:
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As I was reading Each Kindness to my fourth graders not one sound was made. They were so engrossed into this "compelling" story that they couldn't take their eyes off the book. Students aren't used to hearing stories that have this type of ending. We discussed how if the story had ended differently how would that have impacted the story.
We discussed how we all plant seeds of "something." Sometimes that is KINDNESS sometimes it can be SELFISHNESS. I encouraged the students to think about what type of seeds they want to plant. The illustrations in the book are amazing. One student said "even though I don't like tomatoes I would like to pick that one off the page and eat it."
Fourth graders then used Schoology (online blackboard) to post one act of KINDNESS that they have been shown or that they had planted. After they posted that they were encouraged to write their act on a SEED that will be displayed in our hallway. Some of them were filmed by a class Digital Leader reading their act of KINDNESS.
First graders were encouraged to write or draw a picture to show what KINDNESS can look like. Some wrote words like LOVE. Some drew pictures of people carrying items for someone else.
First graders were asked to reflect on what the word KINDNESS means to them either through drawing or words. Some of the words they shared were:
LOVE
HELPING
KIND
Here is the the final product.
