Kindness Matters! Freebie

I've been in a bit of a quandary over my classroom theme this year. Can a teacher do owls two years in a row? What about four? Is it boring to do it six years? NO!! I realize the students coming into my care look forward to being one of my owlets. I briefly considered dragons as a theme. I really love dragons. I just couldn't get past "I'm dragon into first and second grade!" It just doesn't have the feel I'm after. Dragonettes may fear that their teacher would breathe fire on them. I've had teachers like that and I had to be dragged into school those long years.

Then I read two blog posts that really changed my thinking. Barbara and Kimberly both write such thought provoking meaningful posts. I know that I can always have a cup of coffee with them and get something nutritious to go along with my morning joe. Their blog posts, which you can read HERE and HERE rocked my mind...literally!! I've decided my theme this year is "Kindness Matters". It does. Kindness matters and if every school in my town, state, country, world took on a theme like "Kindness Matters" we might be able to change the world.

I'll have one rule this year. Can you guess what it is? Be kind! Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your teacher.  Be kind to your classmates.  Be kind to your schoolmates. Be kind to the world! You could use cute little bees to decorate it. I'm not going to. I still have enough cute owls flying through my classroom to make the room inviting. My "Be"s are just going to be. I'm going to strive to show you how I bring kindness into my classroom during the year to stress to my students that kindness matters.

Look how the kindness of an Oreo cookie changed some of these bad guys...

I've written my own Poetry to go along with this video and my first classroom book will be each child's response to the prompt "Wonder if I gave an Oreo cookie to..."

Who would YOU like to give an Oreo to?

Click HERE if you want more classroom ideas to go with the theme of kindness. The best way to teach it is to be it!!

I hope this qualifies as poetry because I'm linking up with...