Kindness Share Fair

On May 9, 2017, our students had an opportunity to share their kindness projects with their peers, parents, and other stakeholders in our community. We invited everyone at school, putting flyers in mailboxes and sending letters home with students.

The laptop lab was decorated for our festive showcase with colorful streamers and balloons with each project display on tables, much like a conference poster session. We even had a raffle for fun gifts, allowing students to pass out tickets to guests who stopped by their presentation.

Ready to share kindness with the world!

Raffle Prizes

The highlight of the event was having students talk about their Kindness Passion Projects. They couldn't wait to share the many ways they have showed kindness to others! The room was packed from start to finish, filled with a buzz of excitement and positive energy.

Take a peek at their projects below - the titles link to details about each passion project!

A Basket Full of Kindness
By: Gabriella

 

The Delighted Driver

By: Mackenzie

 

School Stuff for Mrs. Houston

By: Raegan

Special Surprise for the SPCA

and

Kindness Hair

By: Jenna

Surprises for Strangers

By: Colten

The Barista Blessing

By: Alice

The Glorious Lunch

By: Lexi

Helping Animals

by: Madison

Hospital Joy

By: Bella

Lunch and Learn

By: Holly

Fruity Tooty Basket of Kindness

By: Jalon

Fly High with Kindness

By: Luke

Helping Dogs

By: Maxwell

Driving Into Kindness

By: Kayden

Batman Flies Into Kindness

By: Summer

Blessing Mrs. Paul

By: Imare'

Doggy Blessing

By: Davis, Tyler, and Todd

The room was overflowing as guests stopped and chatted with students, asking questions about their passion projects. The endless smiles of students and guests reminded us that kindness matters and no matter how old we are, we can inspire others!

Mrs. Cross' family attended as well to share in the joy of the day and see the positive impact her teaching has on the students at Mechanicsville Elementary. What a delight!

After an engaging morning of kindness presentations, the students celebrated with a cookie and group photo in front of their event sign.

We often reflect about the impact our teaching has on students and if our lessons make a difference. I can say without exception that "A Passion for Kindness" not only positively impacted our students, but it changed me as well.

Throughout this year, my mom has been fighting a losing battle with lung cancer and was hospitalized during our final preparations. In between the dress rehearsal and Kindness Share Fair, my mom passed away. Even though our students were at the peak of learning, with presentation practice and standardized testing right around the corner, they also learned a life lesson, too - empathy.

Students took time out of their day to write letters and cards to my mom, sharing kind words about me as a daughter and teacher as well as hopeful sentiments for her to feel better. These cards were exactly what I needed to read in the days following her death. Their kind words filled my broken heart and helped me press on through the pain. In fact, they had such an impact on me and my family that we displayed their sweet sentiments during my mom's funeral reception for all to see.

The week after our Kindness Fair, Mrs. Cross unexpectedly lost her dad as well. Once again, our students showed maturity beyond their years as their kindness lifted our spirits through the toughest of days.

Now some may be thinking this is the end of our story, but I can assure you that it's just the beginning! We have seen our students grow exponentially where kindness is a thread woven in all we do. We have also discovered how we can change the world, one act of kindness at a time. This project has transformed our learning: about kindness, about others, about ourselves.

We are forever changed from "A Passion for Kindness!"

If you would like to learn more about our journey this year, please visit http://bit.ly/MESkindness or email Mrs. Letter directly at tletter@hcps.us. We would like to thank our amazing students, parents, coworkers, administrative team, and community stakeholders for their support. We would also like to thank the Hanover Education Foundation (HEF) for their financial support through "A Passion for Kindness" grant.

HEF Celebration Gala

In December, Mrs. Cross and I were honored by the Hanover Education Foundation for our grant project, "A Passion for Kindness." This annual event spotlights the different grant projects funded for the upcoming year as well as recognizing each school's Teacher of the Year and the district's Teacher of the Year. It was humbling to share this evening with so many teachers from Mechanicsville Elementary, many of whom had also received funding for their creative projects!

Kindness Journals

Today we officially rolled out our kindness initiative in Mrs. Cross' fourth-grade class! We began by reading Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts. This story, about a boy who wanted the same shoes his classmates wore, resonated with many of our students.

Following the story, we had a great discussion about the feelings people have when they want something they can't have, and how those feelings change when someone does something nice. We asked our students, "How do YOU feel when you receive an act of kindness?"

Students responded with "good" and "great," then we asked them to dig deeper. "What do those words mean? Are there any other words that might better represent the feelings you have?" Oh my goodness! The adjectives tumbled out of our students like rolling rapids! Look at all these awesome descriptors our students shared:

One student replied, "bad" and we asked him to tell us more. "I feel bad when people are nice to me, because I feel like I have to do something nice right back. It feels bad to receive kindness and not do something in return." This is was a very insightful response from a nine-year-old! We discussed how kindness does sometimes makes us feel odd for several reasons: we're aren't used to receiving kindness from others, we don't know what to say in return, we feel like it's wrong to take something from someone one else without an even exchange. We decided the word "uncomfortable" best described this feeling, so we added it to our list.

Next, we created Kindness Journals using composition notebooks and decorated them using markers, tagboard, and tape. The students allowed their creativity to shine as they designed their book covers.

Since today is Friday, we created a #FlyHighFri section in our Kindness Journals to keep a running list of any kind acts we see and do on Fridays, which we will share throughout the year with our classmates and on Twitter.

Students also applied this concept of kindness to their writing as they replied to a #FlyHighFri prompt in their Google Classroom:

It's such a joy to see our students helping each other in class and sharing their experiences with kindness. We have lots of activities planned this year to create a culture of kindness at our school and today was just the beginning! 

A special thanks to the Hanover Education Foundation for funding this grant proposal, "A Passion for Kindness." We can't wait to showcase all the ways our students can be kind to others!