Random Acts of Kindness Day

Did you know February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day??

When we discovered this last year we knew it had to be the theme of our February bulletin board.

To get our kids thinking about kindness, we read books like What Does It Mean To Be Kind? and One Good Deed. Then we had them write their own random act of kindness (RAK). They were filled with energy as they began brainstorming their ideas. When they settled on one they loved, they wrote in down and we added it to the board. Some students even needed an extra page to fit the details of their plan.

We compiled a list of their ideas that could be done at school and I added some extras. After some intense Pinterest and Google searching I felt our list was complete. Then I created a “Random Acts of Kindness Bingo” board with items that I knew our class would complete or knew would be easily accomplished individually. (Here's the Word version if you'd like to edit it.) Each student got a board and glued the squares on randomly so that they wouldn’t all be the same. Whenever a student got a Bingo, we all applauded for their acts of kindness (no award was given because we’re focusing on kindness, not winning).

We got compliments from adults all day who were impressed with our RAKs. When kids discovered the RAKs we’d hidden or left anonymously they’d look around with smiles on their faces. My class could not have been any more proud of themselves. I also noticed that RAKs continued to appear in my classroom long after February 17th.

Here are a few of the Random Acts of Kindness that we completed:
-Smile and wave quietly to someone you don’t know.
-Write something kind on a sticky note. Hide it inside the cover of a book in the library.
-Use chalk to write positive messages on the sidewalk. (This was a real crowd pleaser!)
-Say hi to someone new on the playground.
-Make a bookmark for someone in another class.
-Write a kindness poem.
-Hold the door open for someone.
-Pick up someone else’s trash.
-Ask someone who’s struggling if they’d like help.
-Make a friendship bracelet. (We did this as a whole class and each student put a bead on everyone’s bracelet.)
-Put a picture of each student in the middle of a piece of paper. Go around writing something nice about your classmates on their papers.

How will you celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day?

All You Need is Love (And a Break From Testing!)

Whew! January is finally over and we couldn’t be happier. The month was full of tests, tests, and more tests! (Erin loves data and all the charts and tables that come along with it and even she is thrilled that it’s over!) Now that February is here we are celebrating with a new bulletin board.

The crafty part is pretty simple. We used hand and heart patterns. The students cut out the hands and folded two fingers down to make the sign for “I love you.” They did not crease the paper, which created a rounded, more natural look for the fingers. Then they cut out the hearts, glued them onto the hands and wrote about something that they love. We even used this as an opportunity to practice working on synonyms and ended up with sentences with words like “cherish,” “treasure,” and “appreciate.”

Next, we made our class poem centerpiece using this writing frame.

The kids threw out ideas and we worked together to chose the ones we thought sounded amazing. We even combined ideas. To make the board interactive we made individual copies of our writing frame to hang in a pocket. We posted quick and easy instructions on the outside of the pocket. Any student or staff member in our school can take a copy, compose a poem, and return it to us. Then, we’ll hang the poems all around the board, spreading love and poetry for all to see. It’s been an inspiring way to move on from testing. 

**On a quick side note, our team came up with a creative idea that I LOVED. After we hung up the poem on our white poster board heart we felt it was entirely too plain. We thought that adding polka dots could make it cuter but debated on what color would be best so it wouldn’t clash with the other things on our board. We ended up using…. leftover border! We used a round craft punch to make circles that matched the board perfectly. Now this may be old news to some, but I think it’s brilliant!

It’s a Scarecrow Fashion Show!

This is one of my favorite bulletin board ideas. A few years ago I’d been looking for a new way to involve parents in our class’ hallway display for November. I’d searched for hours and couldn’t find inspiration. I told Ann Marie about my predicament and she helped me come up with a killer idea. A scarecrow fashion show! I made a basic scarecrow template (both big and small) to send home with all of my students along with this note. I sent it during the second week of October and set the due date a few days before I would set up the bulletin board. I hung up some stage lights to showcase the scarecrows. As a really fun addition, I found some crows to fly by and gave them cameras to hold for our very own paparazzi. My class loved seeing their creations in the hallway and as parents came to school for our parent-teacher conferences they stopped to check out their kid’s handiwork in the hallway.

I liked the board so much that I did it again this year and I still love it! (So do the kiddos!) Check out the creative scarecrows the class made this year.

Classroom Job Chart Makeover

Last year, when the school year started, I pulled out my same old job chart. It was faded, dusty and didn’t have every job I needed. I looked through catalogs and couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I made my own. It’s clear, easy to print and even easier to change as new jobs develop and others become irrelevant. If you need to renovate your job chart, you can find ours on Teachers PayTeachers. Let us know if you need a job we don’t have and we’ll create it for you! 

Life is Like a Box of. . .

I brought in a large heart shaped box of chocolates and asked my students to guess what was inside. Of course they guessed chocolates, but I wanted them to be more specific. So they threw out different flavor ideas. I told them we were each going to take a chocolate and eat it without knowing what was inside. (Be sure to check for allergies first!) Everyone was surprised by the caramel or strawberry or coconut that greeted them when they bit down. Using the quote from Forest Gump, I introduced the idea that just like a box of chocolates, life is unpredictable. They thought it was funny that I compared chocolate to life. Then I said, “Life is like a box of barbeque potato chips - sometimes spicy and always really good.”

I gave each student one side of an empty holiday card box or the box lid (I collected these from my school staff after the holidays) and asked them to think of what life was like for them. Each student decorated the inside of their box with handmade pictures of the items they chose. Then they wrote their answers on accompanying index cards.

We hung everything on a bulletin board titled: “Life is like a box of …” One student had just returned from his uncle’s funeral. He wrote, “Life is like a box of tears, happy and sad.” Another student wrote, “Life is like a box of cupcakes, sweet and special.” We ate the rest of the chocolates and then I glued brown pom-poms and a school picture of each of my students in the empty spaces within the box. This went in the middle of our board.

 

Snowy Goods and Services

I love how Caralyn Buehner’s snowmen books encourage kids to use their imaginations. When I came across her newest book, Snowmen at Work, I thought it could make a great bulletin board. After reading, we discussed the different jobs the snowmen had in the book and whether they were providing goods or services. Then I asked them to brainstorm other careers snowmen might enjoy. They were coming up with things like pop stars, basketball players, racecar drivers and wrestlers. Finally, I gave each student a template and a letter to take home explaining the project to their families. Students brought back their snow people dressed for a variety of jobs and I gave them all one of these cards to fill in the information about their creations.

I used a bulletin board with black paper and some snow-covered hills to show off these polar producers. I added work zone border and some icy gusts of wind (thank you, glitter glue) to complete the display.

All the Stockings are Hung with Who, What and Where!

We have been working on story elements and wanted to show what we know in a hallway display. (You could also make this a bulletin board activity.) After reading Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas, each student completed a stocking, copied on cardstock for sturdiness. I glued thumbtacks to one side of clothespins and inexpensive ornaments to the other side and attached everything to a colorful border.  I also added a sign. If you have the time, you could make a paper chimney/hearth to create a cozy holiday spectacle.

Turkeys are Hightailing it Out of Town!

Turkeys are always trying to get out of town before Thanksgiving. My students made their own terrified turkeys (from a picture I found online) and chose their worldly destinations. I snagged a clip art suitcase and reproduced it on cardstock. We used blank labels to sticker the suitcases with the names of our final destinations. We then added a picture on an index card of our turkeys doing something in that place. For example, this turkey in India is playing with a tiger.

We added to the theme with travel border and an “International News” sign I found in the local Dollar Tree’s teacher section.