Teaching Kindness with Happy Notes (Bright Ideas July)

Welcome to another Bright Ideas Link Up! 

How do you encourage empathy and cooperation in your classroom? Fostering a positive and productive  classroom environment is about more than just "being nice". The classroom environment has a real, measurable impact on student learning. Anyone who is familiar with brain research can back me up on that; when students are not distracted by conflict or anxiety, learning is much more likely to take place.

Here's one simple, no prep idea to help encourage kindness in your class: The Happy Bucket!

It's very simple: Hand out small papers (called Happy Notes of course!)  to each student and ask them to write a nice note to the special helper of the day. Once students become used to the idea, I also use this activity for early finishers.

Students drop their finished notes into the Happy Bucket. I used a large white envelope as shown below, but a real bucket would be even better, since we always use the book "Have You Filled A Bucket Today" as reference.

Later, I collect them and we read through them together.

My younger students can simply draw each other hugging, or a heart with the student's name in it. Older students are encouraged to write more in depth comments. It's important to celebrate all kinds of notes equally so it does not become all about who is a more advanced writer.

The recipient gets to take their little collection of treasured notes home to show parents. We also sometimes staple them together to make a small book!

For more ideas, please visit me on Facebook, Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers! 

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