When Claire travels with the flying Sky Dragons she is magically transformed into an older version of herself. Her mission? To give Wisdom Pearls to all the children in different lands - with this pearl they will understand their words and actions have an effect.
Dragonella by Janai Lowenstein is a magical journey that entertains little ones and throws a subtle lesson in as well. As Dragonella visits exotic, make-believe lands (I really liked the ice cream children) she spreads her love and kindness, helping all the different children realize being happy and sharing is so much better than being rude.
The illustrations by Du Ling brings Dragonella and her dragon friends to life. The magical lands are inviting and playful, drawing your child into the story.
For more information on this book and other helpful suggestions, please visit Janai Lowenstein's web site at;
http://www.childstress.org/
photo by kissyface www.flickr.com
I once wrote an entire article on sportsmanship and how to fit it into daily lessons for Teachers of Vision magazine. We already have so much curriculum to cover in a year and state testing to prepare for–how can you add one more thing? But I think character education is as important as reading, math, and science, and so I am going to do a Wacky Wednesday series on this subject. These ideas and activities can be used in public, private, or home schools. Today, we tackle. . .
KINDNESS!
As you can see, one idea would be to have a kindness bulletin board like the one pictured with this post. This teacher posted on flickr.com that this board was used to announce when students caught other students doing random acts of kindness! I love it! (And it’s awful cute, too.) This could easily be done in any classroom at any age–maybe in high school you wouldn’t post it on a bulletin board with ladybugs, but teens could drop notes about people whom they caught being kind into a jar. Teachers could pull one of these once a week for a candy bar or homework pass or something teens at your school care about. At home, random acts of kindness can be posted on the refrigerator.
What does it mean to be kind to people? Teach children and teens that it’s not really that hard. Instead of snapping at someone when they run into him or her in the hallway, just smile and say excuse me. Help someone who dropped a book by picking it up and handing it back to him or her. Refrain from joining in when bullying occurs. Smile at the victim and say hi. Offer to give someone a ride home, help with homework, do the dishes for a sibling or parent, and so on. Make sure to give plenty of easy and practical examples to children and teens of how they can be kind in their daily lives.
Let students write about kindness–they could write poems, stories, personal narratives, or persuasive essays. Put kindness in the middle of a word web, and see what topics kids can come up with to write about. Publish these kindness writings in a book with a plastic binding or on a wall display.
Here are some books you might be interested in sharing with children:
What are your ideas for teaching kindness?
