Kindness in the classroom

As my summer winds down, I find myself thinking about the first week of school!  I LOVE the first week of school!!

One of my favorite activities to do with my students is working collaboratively to set the tone for a kind classroom!  To begin the activity, I hand out the 10 keys and have students work in groups to talk about what each key means.  After 10 minutes or so, we get back together as a class and they share what their groups have come up with.

The 10 keys are:
Be Kind
Be Friendly
Share
Be Helpful
Take Turns
Be Respectful
Do Your Best
Be Patient
Smile
Have Fun Learning

After we have talked about each key, they go up on our Kindness bulletin board!  For the rest of the week, I devote some time to our new mission of creating a kind classroom by reading books, doing fun follow up book study work and finally we create a class book of ways that we can each be kind in our classroom.

What are your favorite books that promote kindness?  I love adding new titles to my collection!

A few of my favorites are:

Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud

Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson

Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli

Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler by Margery Cuyler

My Kindness unit is on sale until Saturday, so hop over to my TPT store and snag a copy for your classroom!