In the United States, February 17th marks National Random Acts of Kindness Day (this special day falls in November in many other parts of the world). There are SO many awesome ways to tie this special day into your classroom activities and make kindness a part of your everyday classroom culture.
In my experience, kids LOVE being involved in events like this one. Children are kind by nature, but they may need some support to fully understand how to show kindness to others purposely. Holding a Random Act of Kindness Day, Week, or Month in your classroom can be a great way to encourage this behavior as a regular part of the classroom culture.
There are many great RAK ideas for the classroom available on the internet. Some of my favorites include:
- This interactive bulletin board
- This Secret Agent Challenge
- This school-wide idea
- This visual reminder
- This “shout out” idea
- This interactive anchor chart
In my classroom, my students grow a Heart Garden throughout the school year. We focus on recognizing kindness in ourselves and others every day. I provide my students with challenges each day so that they have a focus.
Students also recognize the kind deeds shown to them by writing a special Heart Garden message to the person they catch doing a RAK. We compile all of these messages in a special space in our classroom, and all love watching this kindness bloom and grow throughout the year.
You can read more about our Heart Garden and how it is an important part of our classroom in THIS blog post, or you can grab a copy of your own here:
Start a Random Acts of Kindness 30-Day Challenge!
Why not kick-start your focus on kindness with a 30-day classroom RAK Challenge?! Click the image below to access my Freebie Library to grab the free 30-Day Challenge and much more! Each day, challenge your students to complete one of the kindness events and color the space to mark it complete. At the end of 30 days, have students return their pages and CELEBRATE!!
Please pin this post to share with your friends and colleagues:
