Kindness Challenge

For the last couple of weeks, the seventh graders have been working on spreading kindness throughout our school. I wrote this unit last year and made some improvements for this year. It's a great way to teach content alongside a life skill that we all need to work on--kindness.

For this unit, we start by watching some video clips about the importance of kindness as well as the scientific benefits of kindness (Life Vest Inside has a lot of really great free resources). Then we have some discussions about kindness, and by this point, most of the students are ready to act.

So they get together in groups, and brainstorm ideas for something they could do to spread kindness at our school. I have them write a project proposal that gets feedback from other students and myself. We've mostly had projects where students leave positive notes in people's lockers or give compliments...all of which involve some form of candy kindness, too. :) Next year I need to figure out ways to help them step outside this box a bit.

Once they figure out a project, they select the day and time they will do their project, and then they go for it! I have them record their observations about people's reactions the day they do their project. They do this by writing them down, taking pictures, or recording. They answer a lot reflective questions along the way, and in the end, they collaborate to write an informative essay about their project, and then present the whole enchilada to the rest of the class. Having the umbrella concept of kindness also improves the classroom environment, so it's a sneaky way to make all our lives better.

This year's group asked a lot of great questions along the way. We had discussions about why kindness matters, how to deal when people that don't return our kindness, and how to keep kindness going even when it's not a requirement for a class.

How do you incorporate life skills in your classroom?

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