signewhitson

One of the most effective ways to prevent bullying in schools is to build school culture through positive activities focused on Kindness.

And soooooooo, we are CELEBRATING KINDNESS this week school-wide!   With spirited, silly dress days, a door decorating contest, and other simple but meaningful activities to help keep kids’ minds on kindness all week long, our goal is to show all students that little acts of kindness can make a big difference for others.

Here’s some of the fun we’re having on Day 1, where our CRAZY FOR KINDNESS theme of the day means crazy socks and/or crazy hair!

This week, I’m teaching my Pre-K and Kindergarten students about Feelings and Empathy, using Frosty & his many feeling faces.  There are endless variations to this great core matching activity.

• I’ve had kids work in partners or groups of three to complete the activity. Some students have asked me if I can leave a copy of the activity in their classroom after my lesson is over because they want to continue playing the Feelings matching game during their Quiet Time.
• With pre-readers, I omit the feeling word cards and just challenge students to come up with their own original feeling words–which is a great way to build their emotional vocabulary.
• Students who like a little friendly competition have spontaneously started to time each other in matching up the faces and words correctly.
• I’ve challenged kids to copy the face on the snowman with their own face, to deepen their experience of the feeling and facial expression.
• Best of all, I’ve had kids tell each other what could possibly make the snowman feel each individual feeling.  Their imaginative and empathetic responses have been amazing!

When I wrote my first book on the topic of bullying prevention, Friendship & Other Weapons, I wrote it with kids ages 5-12 in mind.  Knowing that bullying peaks in middle school, I wanted to help young kids develop the social emotional skills they need to prevent the dynamics of bullying from taking root in their friendships.

To that end, I am still always developing and teaching new lessons that focus on building fundamental social and emotional intelligence skills, even from the earliest ages.  This month, with my youngest students, I am teaching skills to differentiate feelings and recognize non-verbal emotional cues. This week, “the sorting game” has been a big hit, as kids pick a “feelings face” card from my magic box, then decide if the face looks MAD or SAD. With Kindergarten students, to build empathy skills, I add in a component where the kids are asked to imagine what might be making the person feel mad or sad. They love it!