We are kind!

I have thought lots about kindness and teaching kindness recently. I teach 23 third graders and at times, I feels like they aren’t kind.

When they think something, they blurt it out. I remind them to raise their hand. It is kind to take turns and not all talk at the same time.

When I give directions, often I am then asked, “What?” right afterwards. I remind them it is kind to listen carefully to the oral directions so then they can follow them.

When playing, they need reminders to keep their hands to themselves. Tackling and wresting aren’t allowed at recess because we need to be safe and kind when we play.

However, Friday they showed me their kindness and I am so proud of them!

I got am email from C’s mom saying her daughter would  be absent and would be getting tubes placed in her ears today. C had told us all about this upcoming operation. She wrote about it on our class kidblog:

So we all knew she was a little nervous about it.

As students arrived on Friday, I told them that C would be out and maybe we could take a minute and post a note to her on Kidblog. I modeled by writing this:

Then I watched as C’s classmates kindly posted these words to her blog:

By the end of the day, C’s mom posted that all went well and thanked us for our blog posts. Then we read this post from C:

I’m proud of my kind students! They may not always raise their hand or listen well and they do love to tackle. But they also know how to send the best Get Well Wishes to a classmate. So kind!

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PS Thank you Kidblog for helping us connect with C on a day she needed out support.