The week before our Thanksgiving break, students in the Explorers (Transitional K) classroom committed to a Kindness Pledge. The Kindness pledge comes from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, which calls for people to commit to a 14-week kindness challenge. Each week has a different theme inspiring us to different acts of kindness. Our first week was “Be Kind to Community.” We talked about who our community is and how we could be kind to them. We took a walk up the street to buy flowers then gave them out to passing neighbors and store owners. We got a lot of smiles!
The week of Fall Break was “Be Kind to Family” week. Before break, we talked about being kind to our family and what that means. Students reported that they fulfilled their pledge by washing dishes, cleaning clothes, setting the table, making bed and brushing their teeth. Others reported that they gave my tablet and legos to my brother, made cookies for my parents, gave hugs and kisses, let papa sleep. Amazing!!
This week the theme is, “Be Kind Online”. The Explorers drew pictures of things they appreciate about their families and wrote notes to them which we then e-mailed.
This week we also continued to be kind to our community by kicking off our annual food drive! The director of the Berkeley Food Pantry, Dharma, visited our class on Monday to talk about the food pantry, who it serves, why and what kinds of food we can donate. The Explorers then went to their respective classrooms and presented about the food drive, sharing wha they learned and gaining the support of their peers for the food drive. They also made the signs to put on the baskets in each class to collect the food. Look at our Explorers leading the food drive!
