A Chain of Kindness

February 2, 2016 by Aldersgate Preschool 2 Comments

February is here and with that we begin thinking about Valentine’s Day.  Last year we did a “Love Letters” project throughout the month.  This focus on literacy, often through notes of love, was fun and instructive.

This year we are sharing our love through kind actions.  Learning social norms is just as vital, if not more so, than those more academic skills.  But, what does it mean to be kind? Why is it important to be kind?   How do we teach children about kindness?

I will address the other questions in later posts this month but today I am focusing on how we teach children about kindness.

As it is with most things we teach,

our actions are the key.

Children learn so much as they watch the adults in their lives.  They model the actions and words they hear.

Children learn kindness best through watching us be kind.

They notice if you hold a door open for someone walking in the store.  They notice if you speak kindly to a service worker.  They notice when you say “Thank you.”  They notice when you help a friend by cooking them a meal.  They notice if you help the person in the post office that dropped all their letters.

 They notice.

One of the things I love about my job as director is knowing, WITHOUT A DOUBT, that our staff are modeling kindness.  We have the most caring group of teachers, office staff and subs!  Children see them speaking kindly to each other.  Children see them helping each other.  Children see them picking up trash on the bathroom floor.  Children see them greeting children with smiles, hugs and warm words.

Children FEEL kindness everyday while at preschool.  

This week we are sending home kindness kits.  In it is a kindness buddy and some kindness cards.  Our parents should have received an email about these on Monday.  If not, just give us a call and we will gladly send the information again.  For others, I will explain more about our buddies in an upcoming post. We color coordinated strips to the class colors.  It will make the chain colorful and it will be easier for the children to find theirs again once it’s in the chain.

We also sent home some paper chain strips.  We are asking our families to write kind actions they witness from their kids and then send in the strips.  We are making a long chain of kindness.  (I just put on two chains from red class kids a couple of minutes ago!! I LOVE IT!)

I actually started the chain with a link for each of our teachers, office staff and subs.  I took a moment to write a specific kind action I’ve noticed.  It was so easy to think of these!

 

 I can’t wait to see how long our “chain of kindness” becomes!