Wednesday, February 24

 Hi parents,

We had an awesome pink shirt day today!

In the morning, we had a great class discussion about kindness, bullying, and inner feelings. We talked about how unkind behavior can make people feel sad on the inside, and sometimes the "bullies" are just people who have been through a lot of bad things. We did an activity with two apples - a good apple, and a bad apple. We asked the students to say nice things to the good apple, and mean things to the bad one. Then, we cut them open. Sure enough, the bad apple was bruised. Bruised simply by the students' words. And definitely not because it was secretly bruised the day before by the teacher. 

In any case, I think the activity has a powerful message, and I think it really resonated with our exceptionally empathetic classroom. :)

The students wrote step-by-step instructions on how to be a good friend. Their writing followed the format:

First, ______. Then, _______. Next, _________. Finally, _______.

I found this format to be really interesting as it challenged the students to think procedurally about friendship, which is not something we typically do.

In the afternoon, we had Daily 5, and then did one last 'apple' activity. For this one, the students drew a face on a picture of an apple, and then set their apple drawing in front of them at their desks. Then, they circulated the room and wrote nice, friendly, and kind things on every other student's apple. Needless to say it was heartwarming.

Have a nice night!

Zac