100 Acts of Kindness

Ahhh, summer vacation is here . . . and now I have time to work (what's wrong with me?!)! I have so many blog and TpT items on my to-do list for summer. Some are a bit ambitious, and I'm sure I won't accomplish everything on our short 6 week break (we're on a modified year-round schedule), plus I'm going to be out of the country for two weeks! But today I got together with my friend Dana from Learning Required to initiate her into TpT (go follow her brand new store)!

While she was working on her first freebie I went ahead and updated my very first freebie. It is perfect timing because I was planning on posting about it anyhow.

With the last few weeks of school approaching my class seemed to becoming a bit meaner to each other (surprising because I had a very sweet class!). It was time to put operation 100 Acts of Kindness into action. It is such a quick, easy, and low maintenance way to get students thinking about being kinder to each other and recognizing their peers for their kindness.

In the past I have done this as a whole month challenge, but I obviously didn't have a month, it was our last full week of school. I cleared a bulletin board and stapled up a folder to hold the tickets then copied a bunch on brightly colored papers, cut them apart and placed them in the folder. A quick explanation and model of how to fill out a ticket and my 5th graders were all ready to go!

The students were excellent about filling the tickets out at appropriate times of the school day and they would quietly leave the left side of the ticket on my desk and give the right side to the classmate who was caught in an act of kindness. A few times during the day I would staple up the kindness tickets and seeing them go up on the wall prompted students to be more alert and active in giving them out.

Here is what our bulletin board looked like a few days later.

I updated the TpT FREEBIE to look prettier (but the tickets are the same). This is one of those easy-peasy activities to remind students of the importance of kindness and recognizing and thanking others, even if it was just for lending a pencil or picking up a piece of trash.

If you have used, or plan to use, the kindness tickets with your students I'd love to hear your ideas!