TEACHING OUR CHILDREN ABOUT BEING OF SERVICE AND THE VALUE OF KINDNESS!

Many of our non-profits committed to a kinder world have created programs and activities to bring service/kindness/inclusion into the classrooms. Take a look. Bring one of these ideas to your local classroom. Volunteer ideas below.

Caring Common Project: The new Caring Schools initiative gives participating middle schools and high schools survey data and research-based strategies to develop and implement action plans that promote safety, caring, and respect. They have worked with more than 35 diverse schools nationwide.
 
Think Kindness: Students are challenged to document 5,000 acts of kindness in 15 days. Anything from opening a door, picking up a pen, or even sharing a smile, no act is too small to document. Within hours, each school notices an explosion of Kindness within their school. 

Young Readers Edition of Pay It Forward provides a resource for teachers and other educators to use as a teaching tool for middle school youth. The guide provides pre-reading activities, discussion questions, and various activities that align with Common Core state standards.

The Great Kindness Challenge: Become a kindness-certified school district!  Choosing from a 50-item checklist, students are encouraged to perform as many acts of kindness as possible; download the kindness checklist and toolkit and start implementing a kindness curriculum on your campus: Pre-K through High School.
 
Random Acts of Kindness: Downloadable K-12 lesson plans including project ideas, how to lead a kindness project or form a kindness club. Rooted in social-emotional learning (SEL), the curriculum features developmentally appropriate, standards-aligned lessons. Don’t expect kindness in schools… teach it!
 
Bkind:  Start a B KIND CLUB AT YOUR SCHOOL! The focus is on spreading kindness and creating a culture of kindness within your school and community.
 
The Be Kind People Project: Comprehensive year-round solutions to integrate evidence-based character education into your school culture. Be recognized as a Be-Kind School. Resources include All school assemblies, classroom activities, a dedicated kindness concierge assigned to your school, evidence-based surveys, newsletters, classroom materials, banners, and more.
 
Learning To Give: Offering more than 1,400 free State-certified lesson plans for K-12 that teach giving, civic engagement and character through service-learning. Classroom lesson plans creatively infuse philanthropy into K-12 academic content and serve as a foundation for a student-centered approach. Educators report that philanthropy education increases their students’ interest and involvement in service.
 
Compassion Games: Survival of the Kindest.
 
lifevestinside.com: LVI works to cultivate the awareness that children can effect real and positive change in the people around them, simply by ‘living kindness:’ by embodying empathy and compassion in our day-to-day lives. The Kindness Curriculum aligns with the Common Core State Standards to promote kindness, tolerance, and social interaction to our children.
 
911day.org: Last year, more than 40 million Americans spent time on 9/11 helping others through good deeds, including more than one million students of all ages. In partnership with Scholastic and the Corporation for National and Community Service, they are introducing many new lesson plans, photos and videos for your use as an educator.

Charter for Compassion: Have your students sign the Charter of Compassion. Develop a Compassionate Community where you live. The Charter for Compassion has developed a four-part model or framework for building a Compassionate Community, which includes a Charter Tool Box that provides rich and valuable resources. The comprehensive program includes Phase 1: Discover and Assess, Phase 2: Focus and Commit, Phase 3: Build and Launch and Phase 4: Evaluate and Sustain. There are currently 143 Compassionate Cities.

100 Ways to Volunteer with Kids. Developed by STEPS (Student Training & Education in Public Service)