Compassionate in Spirit

Kindness counts! As I've mentioned it's been a rough winter here and so I decided to do mini-unit focusing on one of the 5 pillars of our mission statement: compassionate in spirit. We are studying folktales from around the world so I tied it into this unit by using two folktales from an anthology called Rhinos and Raspberries: Tales of Tolerance.

The first story was Supriya's Bowl, about a young girl who takes a stand in her community to do a kind thing for the people in her town when no one else was willing to step up. It is a small gesture that makes a big difference in the town. After reading the story the students discussed what the story meant to them and then we watched a video from randomactsofkindness.org. We discussed what a "random act of kindness" is and brainstormed some examples of these. The students were then charged with creating a Pixie presentation showing at least 5 random acts of kindness they'd like to try to do over the next month. I modeled for them what mine would look like and sent them off working.

My example to model for the students.

Once they completed the first page they were then tasked with keeping a digital log in Pixie of random acts of kindness they themselves commit or that they see friends doing. The students created amazing pieces and really thought deeply about their projects. Below are a few pictures from the day.

Students brainstormed a list of good deeds
before working on Pixie.

Example of student's brainstorm list of good deeds.

Example of student's finished page on Pixie. Each slide is
narrated with explanation of why they included each good deed.

Students worked to add their own spin on
Pixie.

Our next project was based on a story called Old Joe and the Carpenter. After reading we discussed the tools needed to build and repair friendships. The assignment for the evening was to create their very own "friendship toolbox". The toolbox could be anything they wanted, but had to contain items and memories that showed what friendship meant to them and times they may have had conflicts that needed resolving with friends. After sharing examples from my own toolbox I sent them home to work overnight on the assignment. The next day the students brought in their toolboxes and shared with their classmates. Each student had their own interpretation of what friendship is and what resulted was a collection of varied and beautiful representations of kindness and compassion.

Students sharing their friendship stories with
classmates.

Student sharing his mementos in his toolbox.

Student's digital toolbox.

Written explanation of the parts of student's
toolbox (pictured to the left).