You know all those new and exciting plans you make at the start of a new school year? Well, guess what? I put one of my ideas into action! Here it is…
I wanted a way to make kindness more cool and routine at my school among students and staff. I came across various lessons and bulletin boards, so I decided to create my own version.
The Kindness Matters Bulletin Board was created in December. The purpose of it is to encourage all students and staff to look out for kind acts, write them on a colorful post-it, and stick it on the board for everyone to appreciate. It’s a twist to the “see it, say it, share it” mantra.
I introduced the bulletin board idea in all K-5 classrooms by reading Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson and then doing a demonstration of dropping stones into a bowl of water to watch the ripple effect. As we dropped each stone (starting small and getting bigger), the students named a kind act that each stone represented, and we discussed how kindness ripples out to others and comes back to you. It was a really neat activity!
Here’s a picture of the bulletin board about a week after we started:
Here’s a picture of the bulletin board about a month after we started:
As you can see, it’s filling up! When it’s completely full, I plan to take down some of the oldest ones to make room for new post-its.
Here are some examples of acts of kindness that students and staff have written and/or drawn for the board:
I have a few kindergarten and first grade students who show up to my room almost every day with a new act of kindness they’ve seen to write down. It’s adorable. I also experienced the delight of seeing a group of fifth graders huddled around each other in the hallway – as I approached, I heard one of them say, “Yeah, write that down!” and I could only imagine they were up to no good – lo and behold, they were writing things down for the bulletin board! What a nice surprise!
Hopefully the momentum continues! It is a great morale booster for our whole school community. If I’m ever in need of a smile, I go to the board and fill up on kindness!
