Expanding upon our Kindness Song

Who: 2nd grade classes at my school; they have been struggling with lots of SEL aspects, but particularly showing respect and caring for one another. This could be done with any students in the intermediate grades.

The need: SEL is a top priority need at my school right now; without students’ emotional needs being met and maintained, they cannot carry the extra weight of school work, etc. This project will serve as an active reminder about how we can practice kindness.

What: After exploring empathy through discussion and movement, and creating our own song about how we can practice kindness in second grade, students will explore ways to implement instruments and movement into our kindness melody, formerly just for voice and accompaniment.

UDL & SEL: 

• UDL: Multiple Means of Engagement, Recruiting Interest, Optimize individual choice and autonomy

  • Students will have opportunities to choose and give input on how to enhance our song, with instruments and movement decided by them.

• SEL: Relationship skills & Self-Management

  • Relationship skills: Students will work cooperatively with their classmates to share ideas, try ideas of others, show leadership in the group, etc.

  • Self-Management: Students will practice setting collective goals, using planning and organizational skills to craft the song from beginning to end, and show courage to take initiative when creating.

How:

• Through guided questioning, review the meaning of empathy & kindness in their own words

• Review our Kindness Song, created during our last SEL lesson

  • Post lyrics on the board, sing through, and review why we chose the lyrics we did/how we are practicing kindness through the actions listed

• Ask how we could enhance our kindness song to be even more meaningful and engaging

  • Examples:

    • Add instruments for students to play

    • Create movements to showcase the lyrics being shown

    • Make a video, paired with photos acting out actions of lyrics, or students holding positive affirmations

    • Any student ideas?

• Begin to enhance our song. This is an important step because after we created the lyrics, song participation is passive: just singing, some students are not incredibly engaged. If given the opportunity to add instruments or movements, hopefully students will remain engaged in the work of kindness we are creating.

Materials:

• Character Strong curriculum, K-5 Purposefull Pathways

• Whiteboard/Projector to share past lyrics

• Accompanying instrument (piano, guitar, I will be using ukulele)

• Classroom instruments for students to explore

• Possible tech requirements:

  • iPad/computer

  • iMovie

  • Camera

Here is one class' Kindness song. Students created the lyrics with teacher help. Currently, the song is sung and accompanied by the teacher. In the next step, students will add in instruments, movements, etc.