Spreading Kindness and Happiness

Our fifth grade classes this year have been focused on spreading kindness and happiness to our school and community. We have had a lot of amazing opportunities to do so this year. At the beginning of the year we created coffee sleeves with inspirational messages on them and passed them out at the local Starbucks. Also, we have been given a chance to work with the College of DuPage helping to restore their prairie. The kids are very highly motivated by these acts of kindness and service, so when a parent approached me with another idea, we gladly accepted! The grandmother of a student in my class was recently diagnosed with cancer and has a very long road ahead of her. She is expected to be in the hospital for quite some time. The mom that contacted me asked if we would be willing to make cards and decorations to cheer her up a bit.

When I brought this idea to my fifth graders, their minds immediately started thinking of the most creative possibilities. Their hearts were filled with joy and the motivation was intense! They decided as a class that they would work on things to brighten up her hospital room and do whatever they could to make the stay a little more "enjoyable." These kids have the best combination of caring hearts and amazing artistic talents!

In fact, at the beginning of the year we took a strength-based assessment in which over half of my class showed immense strength in creative arts. As their teacher, I knew that I would need to give tons of opportunities for these children to express themselves through the arts. Academically, we have done this quite often, but we have not used these talents to spread happiness and kindness since the coffee sleeve activity in August. This was a nice reminder of the talents that these kids possess and how we should continue to use them in this way.

The kids got to work in the classroom and took their creations home to finish. They came back with giant smiles on their faces, proud of the work that they did and happy that they have the opportunity to spread kindness and happiness.

We cannot wait to see pictures of her decorated hospital room!