Kindness Counts FREEBIE!

I love to teach about random acts of kindness during the holiday season. And, with all of the other blog posts that I have seen recently, I am so happy to know that I am not the only one! This message was spread all over the teacher blogging community yesterday: As educators, we remember and honor our fallen colleagues and their students from Sandy Hook School.  We honor them each day in our classrooms in which we continue their dream of teaching our children.  We honor their memory with our service.  Join with teachers everywhere in committing random acts of kindness to show our love for Sandy Hook. With that precious message as my inspiration, I have a cute little freebie that I hoping you and your students will enjoy! The snowman surprise craft (another freebie offered in my TPT store) is how I like to kickoff the acts of kindness. Once we complete our first act of kindness, I introduce the kindness counts tree! Every time that I see a student perform a random act of kindness for someone else, I recognize that student and place an ornament on the tree. I then have that student who performed the act to write down what they did on the colorful “Kindness Counts” poster. You can purchase small trees and ornaments at Target or even the Dollar Store. I like to wait until after Christmas to get the best deals! Although you can implement this idea as you wish, I would suggest reminding your students that the reason why they are doing acts of kindness is because they are being kind…not because they are getting an ornament on the tree for every little thing they do! I remind my students that they will NOT get an ornament for every nice act of kindness- that is not the purpose of the activity. When all the ornaments are placed on the tree, you can decide if you would like to reward your students by showing them a random act of kindness. For example, you can take them out for an extra 15 minute recess “just because” or show a short Brain Pop video. Click on the image below (OR HERE!) to download the poster and idea from my TpT store: Happy Sunday, my friends!