Activities
Kindness Activity 1: Crumpled Hearts © Jenny Jenkins 2015 https://sites.google.com/site/valueslessons
Equipment: Red paper and scissors for the students to make hearts. Have a large paper heart, with this poem written on it:
When you speak,
Be kind from the start,
It's hard to mend
A crumpled heart.
Read it to the students, then recite it together until they are familiar with it.
Ask, 'What are some ways that people are unkind to each other?'
With each example add a fold or wrinkle to the paper heart, and see if the children can still recite it although some of the poem is no longer fully showing.
When you are finished discussing examples of unkindness, the heart will not resemble a heart any more.
In order to unfold it, the students have to come up with ways to resolve or fix the unkindness.
With each idea, unfold the heart until it is back to its original shape.
The heart, however, will still show signs of being crumpled.
Talk about how even apologies cannot take away the crumples caused by unkindness.
The hurt stays in our memories like the creases stay in the paper.
After the discussion, give to each student red paper and scissors to make a heart. Ask them to write the poem on it, as a reminder to be kind.
In pairs, the students use their paper hearts to tell each other the lesson of how hearts can become crumpled, and what is needed to straighten them out.
Ref source: http://craftycounselor.blogspot.co.nz/search?updated-max=2012-02-07T21:02:00-06:00&max-results=7
Kindness Activity 2: Kindness Chain
Have a container with strips of paper and a pen. Each time students do a good deed or perform an act of kindness, they write it on a strip of paper and tape the ends together to form the link of a chain. Display the chain in the classroom.Source: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/teacher-made-activities-teaching-responsibility