World Kindness Day Ideas for Special Ed

Today I want to share a few quick World Kindness Day ideas for Special ed classrooms. These can be done with your classroom whether you are in-person, virtual, or hybrid. Most of these are easy to do in person, so I’ve tried to give examples of how they can be done virtually.

First, I’m going to give ideas for random acts of kindness or kindness challenges, and later I’ll share some other lesson activities you can do in small group lessons for World Kindness Day.

I will also share an idea to save you hours of searching for appropriate seasonal lessons in your special ed classroom for World Kindness Day and other seasonal themes and holidays.

Episode 22 FS Show Notes

Resources and Links

Additional kindness quotes you might use to get a class discussion going:

Kindness is contagious.
You will never regret an act of kindness.
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Kindness, no matter how small can still make a huge impact.
Go on a kindness scavenger hunt every day.
Throw kindness like confetti.

Other Links/Resources:

Transcript

Lisa: [Intro] Hi, this is a fun size episode of the Help for Special Educators podcast. Imagine that I’m dropping by your class after school to chat and give you a little fun size candy bar, just like the kids get at Halloween. This episode will be short and sweet.

Lisa: [00:00:00] Hey there! World Kindness Day is coming up and today I want to share a few quick ideas that you might be able to do with your classroom, whether you are in person, virtual or hybrid. Most of these are easy to do in person. So instead, I’ll try to give examples of how they can be done virtually. First, I’m going to give ideas for random acts of kindness or kindness challenges, and later I’ll share some other activities you can do in small group lessons.

[00:00:31] The first random act of kindness is having a student do something for another student in class. Now this might be hard if you’re virtual, however, a student can do something at home and then share a picture of it or talk about it in a virtual meeting. For example, a student can draw a picture, make a craft, or build something at home, then take a picture of it and either share it during a class meeting or upload it to the school online learning platform, such as Seesaw, Flipgrid, Padlet, et cetera. Some examples could be making the other student’s favorite thing out of Play-Doh or little plastic bricks. If your students don’t write, they might make a short 15 to 30-second video of them saying something nice about the other student.

[00:01:22] If you have students who do write, then they can write out the compliment or whatever they want to say that’s [00:01:30] nice about the other student. AAC, devices and switches can also be used. Then during the virtual meeting, students can take turns, reading their notes aloud. Or they can be making the AAC device or switch, speak for them. During a virtual meeting, students can take turns reading their notes aloud, or you can give them time to type the recipient’s name and the note or compliment to them in the video chat. Be sure to encourage students to think of ways that they can do random acts of kindness for their family members at home, too.

[00:02:03] If you’re looking for boom card activities, which are excellent for independent centers, either in classroom or virtually, I have two decks for World Kindness Day. On both, they listen to a kindness quote that is read aloud. Then they either match the pictures or type out the quote. Here are a few of the quotations:

Kindness, no matter how small can still make a huge impact.

A random act of kindness will benefit both the giver and receiver.

Go on a kindness scavenger hunt every day.

[00:02:38] You can see more of these quotes as well as get links to my Boom Card store, and anything else that I talk about. Just go to https://Lisa goodell.com/podcast.

[00:02:49] If you like getting seasonal activities and ideas like what I’ve shared so far, but get frustrated with how much time it takes to come up with them or to find the lessons online that are appropriate for your student population, then you might be interested in purchasing my monthly Seasonal Activity Club. Now this is not a subscription. You just buy whichever months you want separately. For each month, there are at least 50 ideas which are curated by me so that you don’t have to spend hours searching for lesson ideas. For example, the themes for my November Seasonal Activity Club are Thanksgiving, fall, Veterans day/military, elections, World Kindness Day, as well as COVID resources or miscellaneous activities that are good any time of the year.

[00:03:39] I suggest when you are doing your lesson plans, that you start here for anything seasonal. Find the theme that is coming up and pick and choose what small group activities you want to do. And this can be done in small group stations led by you, a paraprofessional, or a sub. For example, you might choose an adaptive book, craft, read aloud, boom cards, task cards, or a brain break dance video. Many of the activities are housed right on the website with text, images, PDFs, audio, video, and files of lessons that I’ve done, but have never published.

[00:04:15] In addition, there are links to free third-party activities on the web, such as blog posts, videos, or TPT resources. Save yourself hours of prep by spending less money than what I spend on a cup of coffee.

[00:04:29] For general [00:04:30] challenges or class assignments, here are some more ideas. Have students come up with book titles or quotes about kindness that they have heard. Or give them time to research online for quotes, memes, and book titles, with a kindness theme that can be shared with the class. Then you can use those in future lessons. Maybe you have a small group where you have a book or a video of someone reading one of the books for your students.

[00:04:58] Other ideas for small group rotations would be getting things from dollar stores. They have little puzzles that have a turkey on it for November. Then the students will spend the station time working on the puzzles. You can also match seasonal activities with manipulatives or blocks or things that you already have in class.

[00:05:22] For a little writing center, you could have some words , phrases or sentences of encouragement. Students can pick out their favorites and copy them onto some sticky notes and then take those home and put them somewhere where family members will see them and be encouraged.

And that’s it for this fun size episode. Thanks for listening. I hope you heard something helpful. Remember, you are amazing! This is Lisa Goodell, and I look forward to talking to you next time.

Check out other Podcast Episodes

Map of the world showing countries that have heard the podcast — The Help for Special Educators podcast has been listened to in over 50 countries! Thank you to each of my listeners, all around the world! You are making a difference!!

Podcast Host: Lisa Goodell

Lisa Goodell, M.A., launched the “Help for Special Educators” Podcast on April 1, 2019. She has taught for over 24 years, including third grade, resource/inclusion (RSP), and mild/moderate self-contained (SDC). Currently, she is an itinerant orthopedic impairment (OI) specialist/teacher for students birth to 21 years old in all general ed and special ed settings.

Lisa has a master’s degree in special education and six special ed and general ed teaching credentials. She has been honored as “Teacher of the Year” at both the elementary (2014) and secondary level (1994). She lives in rural Central California with her family and a bunch of cats. Connect with Lisa here.

Check out her TeachersPayTeachers store, “Lisa Goodell.” You can also get more information by listening to the beginning of Episode 1.