I AM Lesson

"I am" Lesson- After the stressful PARCC testing, I am asking my students to focus on what they are- smart, funny, loved, inspired, courageous, humorous, etc. This week's assignment is to create an I AM poster like this one! (I am also having my son, Weston do one too as he struggled with taking the test too last week). Time to refocus on what's important...building student's self-esteem and self-confidence!

Random Acts of Kindness and the Wonder Connection

For the first time in my career, we asked our incoming 6th grade students to read a book over the summer.  Our pick was Wonder by R. J. Palacio.  We choose the book because of it's amazing themes- Kindness, Acceptance, Friendship, etc.

We have decided to start our school year discussing kindness and how being kind to others truly impacts the world.  On September 11th, we watched a video clip called:  9/11 Anniversary Call for 10,000 Acts of Kindness.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taQt42zqrKs

Now, even though this "call" for kindness was a few years old, I decided to challenge my own students to this.  They all were asked to do a Random Act of Kindness.  Then, we would share our acts in hopes of inspiring others to continue to do more kind acts.  We also journaled about our experience.

Well, one of my students decided to do his Random Acts of Kindness on me!  This is what I saw on my desk:

I was shocked and SOOOO excited!  I love the fact that my student gave it back to me!  I decided to then, copy the sheet and pass it on to two students in my class as well as 5 teachers in my building!  Looking forward to this lesson impacting tons of other lives!