Global Kind Project Celebration!

On Thursday, we joined The Educator Collaborative for a LIVE celebration of the Global Kind Project! 

After getting to see pictures of classrooms all around the world and learning about all that they did to be kind over the last few weeks, we got a special shoutout from The Educator Collaborative founder Chris Lehmann and he shared an important message: 

"There are so many of us, including YOU, who can help to make things better—Lets celebrate all that we can do to to make the world a better place than it was yesterday"

We also got to hear from author Trudy Ludwig, who wrote The Invisible Boy along with many other great stories, and she too shared with us all that we are capable of by just being kind. If you'd like to watch the celebration, click here!

Now all of the giraffes have had a chance to sit in the hot seat! 

Global Kind Project Weeks 2 and 3: Gratitude and Empathy

Over the last two weeks, we've continued on our journey to kindness by exploring gratitude and empathy both in our classroom and in classrooms across the country!

Our first act of gratitude was making Valentines for Veterans, which will be delivered to military men and women via the Pease Greeters! We wished them a Happy Valentine's Day, and thanked them for serving our country and keeping us safe. 

Later that week, we had a Mystery Skype with a class in Michigan! After we guessed which state they were from, we played some games to get to know each other and we all made a pact to smile at three people before leaving for the school day. 

During our skype, we brainstormed a list of people who work for our schools who don't always get the appreciation they deserve, and we made thank you cards for our custodians, cafeteria workers, office staff, nurses, and our bus drivers! We also got together with the Elephant Class for some safari time and read the book Sam's Pet Temper before going through some of Teaching Tolerance's empathy resources. 

We continued with our "Kindness Hot Seat" as well, and we are hoping to get everyone in the hot seat by the end of next week!

Next week we will continue to focus on Empathy with a "mix it up" day at lunch and some more great books!

Global Kind Project Week 1: Kindness in Words

Our first official week of The Global Kind Project has been a huge success! Although we were only in school for a few days this week, we made the most of them and learned a lot about kindness in words, and then we put that learning into practice! 

One activity that we started and will continue over the next few weeks was our "Kindness Hot Seat". Each giraffe gets a turn sitting in the swivel chair while their classmates (and teacher!) write about what they love most about them on the board. After everyone is finished, that person gets to turn around and see all the kind things we had to say about them! 

While talking about being kind with our words, we also talked about the power of our words. While words can sometimes have the power to hurt others, they can also have the power to bring love and positive changes into the world. We learned about how Martin Luther King Jr. used his words along with many others to change America for the better as he fought for equality. Dr. King was peaceful in his approach for changing the world, and we talked about the power of joining voices together.

On Tuesday, we walked around the room with a partner and took turns putting colorful dots on pieces of white paper. 

Afterwards, we used the paper to trace and cut out a silhouette of a dove (a symbol of peace) and wrote words that represented peace and kindness on a black piece of paper. Then we read the story What Does It Mean to Be Kind? by Rana DiOrio and we wrote about what we think it means to be kind under our doves, which are now on display in our hallway. 

 While our original google hangout was canceled due to a surprise snow day, we were FINALLY able to connect with our second grade postcard pals in Illinois!

We got to ask and answer lots of different questions about our schools, communities, and our sports team preferences :) Afterwards, we read the story Friendshape by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and then it was time to say goodbye. We will continue to write back and forth with our buddies via our digital postcards on Google Slides, and we will hopefully get to do another Google Hangout soon! 

We are excited to continue with The Global Kind Project as we move into Inspiring Good with Gratitude next week. For now, we will leave you with this quote one of the giraffes shared with us this week: