Fern Michonski / Fern’s Music
Pre-School Music Education Expert: The Children’s Advocate for Love and Kindness, Inspiring Creativity and Joy.
I’ve seen bumper stickers on cars that read “Do random acts of kindness.” I like that idea. How do we encourage our young children to do “random acts of kindness?” My friend and colleague, Cheryl Elizabeth Waddell had a wonderful idea that encouraged the preschoolers in her classroom to really get excited about carrying out random acts of kindness. Cheryl’s idea can be used either at home or in a classroom setting, and on top of that, it is fun and creative to do!
Create a tree out of paper and put it up on the wall. You can create any type of tree, from an Evergreen to an Oak. If you choose to be more creative, you can trace each of your children’s hands and place them on the wall in the shape of a tree, or use their paper hands as leaves on the tree. Tell the children that this is their “Act of Kindness” tree. Explain that every time someone in the class does something nice or kind for someone else, he or she will be allowed to make a heart and write down what nice thing he/she has done on the heart. The heart is then taped up onto the “Act of Kindness” tree. The individual names of the children who do these kind things is not put on the heart—just what they have done. These acts of kindness can be many things from sharing, helping someone clean up, saying something nice to someone, offering to water the plants, feeding a pet, feeding the birds, etc. Finally, tell the children that once there are a certain number of hearts on the tree, the class will have an “Act of Kindness” Celebration where heart cookies will be baked and everyone will share in the delicious kindnesses they have showered on each other for the month. A new tree is started every time their goal has been reached.
Children love this idea! Soon everyone’s frame of mind is thinking about being helpful, kind and loving to their peers. We would all like to see our children develop this quality. It may seem simple at first, but if everyone did this in every classroom, our world would become a much better place and it just might be the first step in putting a stop to bullying at school.
Let’s spread random acts of kindness right from the start, beginning in our homes and in our preschool classrooms.