Kindness Matters

I have seven students in my class and they don't always get along with one another. The project that I wish to do with my class would encompass building friendships, respecting others, building creditable citizens and learning to share and work together.

I would commence the project by having older grades come in my class to talk about what it is to be a good friend. I also see our class doing roleplaying where they have to distinguish the difference between a good friend and a bad friend and how could they turn the bad friend into a good friend. Creating life size sketches of each student, which they would colour and add appropriate body parts and then I’d take it a step further and have each individual draw something nice about each individual. By the end there would be 6 nice pictures from each student in the class on each sketch. This would make every child feel warm and special and they can show off their display with pride. I would also like to paint kindness rocks and leave them throughout the school for others to find, this will instill giving values and make someone’s day. With this I would like to purchase games on friendships that we could play as a class as well as purchasing stories and songs that pertain to friendship, sharing and kindness. There is so much that one could do with this project, listed are only the ideas I am thinking of now, but I am sure that as each mini project commences it will snowball into other ideas and lessons to add to this project.
This project will most likely be ongoing throughout this school year as they are only pre-k and k aged students and this is a heavy topic that requires time, practice and modeling. By the end of this project I hope to establish friendship, respecting others and sharing which is the foundation to building creditable members.

Update (November 6, 2018)

I've decided to start our project off with a mini peace project. We will be talking about what peace is and how to be at peace at home and in school. We will be talking about our feelings and how some feelings can make us angry and upset and what can we do to make peace with our feelings and move forward. I have a new game that I've purchased called, ''My Feelings'' with my $300 budget, which will also help us sort out our feelings. Starting with this foundation, will help students to be a batter friend and learn to get along better with one another. I feel that in order to do this we need to learn to identity our feelings and to make peace with those feeling. I will post pictures of my students work once we've completed this mini unit. Sill lots to do for this project, I have lots of ideas that will be put into place throughout the school year, as I said in my project description this will be a year long project as it isn't something that can be done in one week!

Update (December 20, 2018)

Since November 11, was remembrance day, my Pre-k and k class spent the week leading up to this day, talking about PEACE. What does peace mean, what does it mean to you, how can we be at peace with ourselves, our friends and the people around us? We read stories (Peace week in Miss Fox’s class, By: Eileen Spinelli, The Peace Book By: Ilyssa Thomas, What is Peace By: Etan Boritzer) We listened to short video clips on everything peace related. We talked about what Remembrance Day means, child friendly version. We made poppies and we ended our unit decorating doves and writing what peace meant to each student. Since they are only Pre-K and K students, my K students wrote a sentence or two and my Pre-K students, with help wrote a few words. The end results were fantastic, we displayed them is the corridor for everyone to see.

This mini-unit was tied to our year long friendship unit as to build on our friendship skills we need to discover and learn what peace means to us, what can bring us peace, so that when something upsets us we can learn to work through our emotions and deal with our feelings, bring peace to what is bothering us. From there we can become the type of friend everyone wishes to be around.


Please note that a copy of the things that were purchased for this unit will be sent when the final version of this project is submitted. I am buying things to use for this unit, as this is my first year teaching Pre-K and K I am purchasing a lot of books as they I started off very limited, I have also purchased a game, and currently looking into another one, I’ve purchased a movie, INSIDE OUT that deals with feeling and how to control them, etc.