Growing the Garden of Kindness

Title of Project: Growing the Garden of Kindness

Schools and Teachers

Hemlock, Homestead, & Locust Schools Teachers: Alyssa Pinto-Abreu and Katie Forte

ENL Proficiency Level | ENL Program | Standards | Technology

Entering, Emerging, Transitioning, Expanding | Stand-Alone, Integrated ENL/ELA | KRF3, KRF3a, 1RF3, 1RF3a | iPads

Assessments

Formative & Summative- Using the four modalities, Assessment included:

  • Speaking and Listening: Spot checking during whole class discussion and anchor chart creation.

  • Writing: Students complete petal with no more than one error. Students at the Kindergarten level are able to tap out at least three words they are using in their writing on their petals; students at the first grade level are able to write at least one complete sentence on their petal without a prompt.

  • Reading: When students present their work either by video or in pair share, students are able to read each other’s sentences and provide another example of kindness, thereby showing comprehension of what they have just read.

*This lesson required the use of Grant iPads for video and audio, Buncee, and google docs. Please see the link in the Resources section.

Description

Our project was integrated with Kindness Week at the Primary schools as well as part of a vast project focusing on spreading kindness across the Garden City Schools District. At the Primary level, we asked our students to create a “Garden of Kindness.” Our lesson began with a video in Buncee of our ENL students describing how someone helped him or her when they first came to this country. From there, our ENL students asked their peers, “How can you help someone?” or “How can you grow the garden of kindness?” Our students generated an anchor chart of ways to be kind, then each student completed a paper petal telling how they were helped by someone. A small number of students were then video recorded stating something that they did to help grow the garden of kindness. Blank Petal and Completed Petal boxes were left in each classroom for a week, the goal of putting all the flower petals together on a bulletin board, noting that students did indeed “Grow the Garden of Kindness.” Please see our Buncee link for videos, lesson pictures, and completed student work.

Content

I can use letter sounds that I know to sound out hard words when I write.

Language

I can use my Fundations knowledge of digraphs, sounds, and blends to help me spell words when I write to express my ideas.

Technology

I can use an iPad to record my voice and listen to myself to improve my speaking.

Student work


Procedure

Steps involved engaging students throughout, including the use of iPads for individual stories and feedback, class meetings and generation of a Kindness Anchor Chart, and using individual petals to contribute to a community. Levels of scaffolding included linking to greater projects in the district and building each mini lesson over a full five day school week. Differentiation examples included: Intervention- strategies for students who had difficulty included dictation, pair-share, individual meetings with the teachers, using iPads to practice a speaking statement before writing it so the student could listen to his or her own voice and decode his or her own speech. Enrichment- Students who mastered the concept were assigned “pair-share buddies,” helped as scribes, and permitted to offer designs for the bulletin board.

Reflection

This project was wonderful to collaborate on because we were able to take our regular language instruction of focusing on all four modalities and create a Social and Emotional learning piece for our youngest friends in the Garden City School District. We learned a lot more about our students’ histories, their feelings towards certain things, and watched them grow socially and academically as they “Grew the Garden of Kindness!”