GLOBAL BILINGUAL ACADEMY KINDNESS ACTIVITIES PACKAGE
ACADEMIC YEAR 2018 – 2019
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- YouTube Video List
- Kindness Activities
- Kindness Posters
1.Introduction
Bullying Ends with Kindness!!!! Implement Kindness and the school will be bully free!
In our fifth year, 2018-2019, we are done with Anti-Bullying! It is “Kindness” month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our goal is that our actions and words promote Kindness!
Follows the history of Kindness (previously anti-bullying) at Global. Global Bilingual Academy School (GBA) has a zero tolerance policy for bullying. Part of our mission statement is to:
Provide a learning environment that is safe, orderly and positively geared to making students feel valued, challenged, supported and encouraged to pursue self-discovery and become lifelong inquiry-based learners.
Our plan to uphold this policy:
- Strong, consistent and effective discipline rules and procedures
- Administration, teaching staff, support staff reinforce, model and support zero tolerance policy for bullying
- Yearly Kindness (previously Anti-bullying) month
Year 1 – 2014 – 2015:
- Students educated to differentiate between ‘Buddy’ and ‘Bully’ behaviors
- Student made anti-bullying posters and slogans visible around the school
- Common gesture and word to stop bulling developed among students, teachers, parents and staff: “Hand stretched, palm up and say “Stop”.
- Our chosen school slogan:
“BE A BUDDY NOT A BULLY”
Year 2 – 2015 – 2016
- October is Anti-bullying month.
- Daily classroom activities supporting school values of tolerance, respect and friendship, included in teachers’ newsletters and lesson plans.
- An activities package was shared with the whole staff.
- The story of “One” was read to all classes.
- Class visits to reinforce the concepts learned and enroll a student ‘Task force’ were made. Students who stood up to bullies got to wear an ‘Anti-bullying” T-shirt for that day in their classes. They were the Anti-Bullying police
- A guest speakers came to the speak to the students
- Students showcased what they have learned during a general assembly.
Year 3- 2016-2017
This year saw more students’ involvement. In addition to classroom activities, guest speakers, selected students visited other classes and spread anti-bullying awareness by giving 5-minute presentations to other students. During the general assembly
- Grade 3 presented a video about bullying
- Grade 5 presented a PowerPoint presentation about Cyberbullying
Grade 5’s work was selected to be included in the Kuwait First Conference for Protecting Children from the Risks of Social Media Activities organized by the Ministry of Education on 21st-23RdMarch 2017. Our students presented a short skit at the conference.
Year 4 – 2017 – 2018
Year 4 saw the change from Bullying to Kindness. Anti-bullying awareness was stressed among the students, parents and staff. Equally, “KINDNESS” was promoted in our words and actions!
2. YouTube Video List
1. Random Acts of Kindness
2. Color your world with Kindness
3. Kindness is cooler Ms. Ruler
4. All About Kindness (song for kids about doing good deeds)
5. Happy to be me – Sesame Street
3. Suggestions for Kindness Activities
Compliment Circles: Creating a Kind & Respectful Classroom
Compliment circles are one of our favorite activities and probably one of the most important things I do in my first grade classroom. They teach my students how to give and receive compliments as well as create a classroom of respect and kindness. Keep reading to see how you can transform your classroom into a compliment giving, respectful and kind classroom.
What Is It?
A compliment circle is an activity that teaches students how to give and receive compliments. Essentially, the idea is that in a compliment circle every student will give a compliment to one classmate and every student will receive a compliment from another classmate.
How To Do It
To start a compliment circle, everyone, including the teacher, sits in a circle with their legs stretched out, like the picture above.
Once you have your circle ready, ask for a volunteer to start. That person picks a classmate, says their name nice and loud so everyone can hear and then gives them a compliment. The friend who received the compliment says “Thank you!” and then pulls their legs up to sit criss-cross applesauce. That way the class knows who still needs to receive a compliment. You could also have students put a thumb on their knee, but that can get hard to see, so I do the legs. After that, you go around the circle, until everyone has given and received a compliment.
Tips & Tricks
Before I introduce the compliment circle to my class, we talk a lot about what a compliment is. I teach them that it is something nice you say about someone and that it’s really important to be sincere. And yes, we have to talk about what it means to be sincere or genuine. We also talk about the rules from the beginning.
The first time we do a compliment circle, we start by complimenting each other’s clothes, yes it’s a little superficial, but students begin to learn what a compliment is. We use the sentence starter “I like your…” Students then fill in the sentence. “I like your blue shoes.” “I like your pretty purple dress.”
Once students understand that a compliment is telling someone something nice about them, we move away from compliments about their clothes and move onto compliments about things they are good at. This is usually the second or third circle we do, depending on how long it takes them to get the first compliments down. This time we use the sentence starter, “You are good at…” Students say things like, “You are good at reading.” “You are good at soccer.”
The final step, by our fourth or fifth circle, I let the students come up with compliments on their own and that’s how we continue for the rest of the year. I do have the rule that is cannot be about their clothes anymore. Those compliments are too easy. I want students to really think about their classmates and come up with something they know they do well, something they saw them do that was kind, or some time when they noticed they were working really hard. Throughout the week, I give reminders that they should be looking for good things their friends are doing so they have some ideas for compliments when we do our next compliment circle.
You will have the students who seem to give the same compliment as someone before them, give a compliment to the same friend every time, or just can’t come up with something nice to say. To help these situations, if they come up, I will compliment students who choose new friends, give a truly sincere compliment, or make the rule that it has to be someone that isn’t their best friend. I’m sure you can come up with other ideas on how to alleviate these situations when they come up, because you know they will.
We talk a lot about finding nice things to say and that it’s always possible to find something, you just have to think hard enough!
Kindness Sorting Activity
Kindness Coloring Activities
4. Kindness Posters
