And This Is My Kindness

Each week, B gives an art challenge of the week. On Friday mornings, we announce the winners and they come to the office to get a small prize. She’s been doing this since last year.

Sometime earlier this school-year, I decided that I’d present students with a character education challenge of the week. (Yes, I chose character education rather than music. What does that say about my passion as a teacher?) On Friday mornings, I announce the winners and they, too, come to the office to get a small prize.

Friday morning announcements have actually become one of the favorite times of the week—students crammed into the office, full of excitement from their wins, pushing through nerves to say their names on the intercom, joining voices in both the pledge of allegiance and the Johnsonville song. It’s really a neat experience. (It’s also a neat experience to learn that classroom teachers have turned the character education challenge into a classroom writing activity.)

The character education trait of both December and January has been kindness. I’ve had students define kindness, describe how they have recently shown kindness, draw and explain a holiday kindness scene, and write a poem about kindness.

This week’s assignment is similar to the latter yet somewhat specific: write a kindness acrostic. I explained what an acrostic was this morning and I’ll remind everyone again in the next few days. We’ll see if I get any kindness acrostics by Friday morning or if the character education box will be full of trash and overflow art challenge answers (which is the sometimes the case). Either way, I’m going to do my own character education challenge this week. So here it is—a kindness acrostic—in very typical Deanna style:

And This Is My…

Keep going, my friend.
It may seem that all is lost, but things are
Never beyond redemption.
Don’t give up. You can do it. And you
Never need do it alone.
Every moment, every minute, every
Second. You have my love and
Support. I believe in you.

What’s your kindness acrostic?

Or, if you want to participate in this week’s art challenge, here’s what you need to do: Draw the silhouette of an animal. Drawings or writings can be posted here or sent my way via county mail :-).