Promoting Kindness in the Classroom

November is the time of year when most people stop and take a moment to be thankful for the wonderful things in their life. It is usually a time when teachers have students write about what they are thankful for too. But, what happens during the other months of school? Are you promoting kindness and gratitude throughout the school year, or mostly in November? This post is to help you to continue the gratitude and kindness throughout the entire school year. 

Last year I read a lot about promoting kindness in the classroom. I tried to find activities that would help my students to be thankful each day and also to be kind to one another. The little steps I took made a difference in my class, and in how I felt each day coming to work. I hope a few of these tips and resources will help you along the way too. 

The first step is practicing gratitude on your own and modeling it for students. Develop a routine with students where each day you have what you are thankful for written on the board or in a morning message to students. Each day on my board, I had three words of the day such as, "Always be kind!" or "Do your best!". Under that I wrote what I was thankful for. It could be as simple as, "I am thankful I woke up on time today." or "I am thankful to hear you listened so well for the guest teacher." Students would enter the room, and write their own thankful statement as part of the morning routine. I had them do this in their assignment notebooks so parents could see them, but some teachers prefer to have a worksheet that students add to each day. I created one for you that you can use. The first page is for a daily gratitude and the second page is for a once a week reflection. 

Link to free template

This could also be part of the sharing portion of your morning meeting once a week, or at the end of day meeting. Some teachers do Friday letters to families and this could be added to that. Also, I suggest having a place in your classroom where students can reflect and thank others. I had a "Reflection Board" which was used as a parking lot for questions to me, questions to the class, compliments for others, or compliments for the class. It was a great place for me to see students' thoughts and ideas and a great way for students to share. I got the white board sheets in a roll from the Dollar Store! 

Another thing you can do to promote kindness in the classroom is to have students recognize one another for being kind. They need to hear it from their peers as well as you. I had a Boogie Board like this in my classroom that my students loved to use instead of their whiteboard each day. In the beginning of the year, I modeled how I chose a student for the day by giving specific feedback to that student for why they earned the Boogie Board. "Natalie is earning the Boogie Board today because she showed perseverance during math yesterday when the problems got tough for her." Soon, students were ready to nominate a peer that they had also seen being a visible learner in the classroom. I just used an old pencil box and students once a week would nominate another student to use the board. When I pulled a name, the student who was the nominator said why they nominated that person. Sometimes there would be 3-5 students who nominated the same person and they would all share why they nominated the student who received the board. You should have seen the pride the nominee showed by hearing the compliments about their work. To prevent the same students from getting the board each week, I kept a checklist and each week students who were not nominated could have their names put into the pencil box. This way, EVERY student, even those who had a hard time in class with behaviors would be recognized by a peer. 

The third way to promote kindness in the classroom is to use these little templates that I created for the year starting in November. I don't think students know each other well enough to do this earlier in the year, so November is a great time to start. 

Get the template for these HERE.

My rule for these templates is students cannot write, "Thank you for being my best friend." They are also encouraged to look for people who don't have one hung up to find something the could thank them for. I had them in a little basket and students would grab one when they finished work or if they had free time. Once finished, they would hand them to the receiver, and the receiver was the one who got to hang up in the room. I hung mine in rows along the shelves for everyone to see. I sent them home at the end of the month and put out the next month's shape to continue the kindness.


Finally, there are a ton of kindness and gratitude books out there for a read aloud with your students. Click HERE for 13 books that could get you started!


I would love to hear how you promote kindness and gratitude in the classroom year round. Please comment or ask questions below. 

Building Relationships in the Classroom

Whether you have been teaching for a long time or you are a first year teacher, I am sure you have heard or realized by now that the key to a successful school year is building relationships with your students. John Hattie's Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning book shows that forming teacher-student relationships has an effect size of .72. His research has shown that teaching practices with an effect size of .4 or above improve student learning.

Other research I have read shows that we cannot just have simple surface relationships with students and we need to push ourselves to really get to know our students, building trust so we can forge high-performance relationships. This would be the level we would want to aim for a classroom teacher. Our students at this level will feel cared for and also know that we will be challenging them to excel in their learning. 

So how do we do this? 

• The first step is to check our own belief system. If we truly believe that our students can be successful then we need to push them to get to that level of success. If we do not believe that a specific child or children can be successful, we have completely halted the ability to form a true relationship with that student. 
• The second step is to get to know all of our students. This can be done in so many ways. Many teachers use beginning of the year surveys to get to know a student's likes, dislikes, passions, and struggles. I admit, this is a tool I have always used. I even do an additional first week of school survey for parents to see how the student sees himself or herself compared to how the parent sees their child. Another way to learn about your students is to have lunch with them. I would schedule lunches with small groups of students in my classroom. They loved this special treatment and I also got to know more about what they do on the weekends, their families, and their friends. There are tons of resources on TPT for students sharing information about themselves. Some of my favorites are the All About Me Bags and the Math About Me. 
• The third step is keeping a record of that information! I have always had a binder where I kept student surveys and information I had learned about them, but honestly sometimes flipping back and forth in those binders to get to their student page made things a bit difficult. A few weeks back, I read an article from Mind/shift that suggested collecting student data all year round. I used their example and created a spreadsheet of my own. Feel free to use it for your class! Click HERE for the 360 Spreadsheet. As a coach this year, I have actually taken this same type of form and have a spreadsheet on my teachers. I am using it to remember and track new things I am learning about them so I can make connections with them in future conversations. 
• The fourth step is being available and making sure that students know you not only want to connect with them, but that as a classroom you want all students to connect and learn about one another. I was so happy to find out about The First Six Weeks Of School by Responsive Classroom. Check out their website HERE. I heard about this book last year and was so excited when I found out my administrators had bought a copy for every teacher to read over the summer. Morning Meeting is the key to a successful school year. I can honestly say that after these first few weeks I have seen so many student-student and teacher-student connections being made. So many students have said that Morning Meeting is their favorite part of the school day, and to top it off, they are upset if they are late to school because they do not want to miss out on it with their classmates. The thing I love most about this book and Responsive Classroom is that it gives a structured, guided approach to doing morning meetings. Complete honesty: I have done morning meetings in the past and have had a huge success, but I would just throw in topics that we were struggling with as a group. I would also do most of the getting to know you activities at the start of the year and then we would just discuss goals or reflect on our day. I always knew something was missing, and I believe the structure and activities were that missing piece. With this format there is a Greeting where students greet each other in a different way each day. Next, you have a sharing time where students share with one person  or the whole group. Third, you guide students in a group activity which is a chant, song, or game. Finally, you read the morning message together. There are tons of resources in the book that guide a teacher through the first 6 weeks of school and beyond. Morning meeting continues throughout the school year. 
• Finally, throughout the year, but especially at the beginning of the year, share your hopes and dreams (goals) with students and have them share their hopes and dreams (goals) with you. 

As an instructional coach, I have also been getting to know students and trying to build relationships with them. I have signed up for morning and after school duty. During this time I am able to get to know students and talk to them about their lives in and out of school. I also have been joining in on Morning Meeting every day in a different classroom. If I will be in a classroom for the first time that day, I make sure to go to that classes Morning Meeting. I have also been in the cafeteria if it works into my schedule. I try to talk to students on an informal level while they eat lunch or in the hallways. While I know I will not be able to have close relationships with students as a classroom teacher could, my goal for the year is to at least get to know something about each student that I encounter.