This Valentine's Day spread the love around your campus with a fun "Spreading A Little Kindness" writing activity. Encourage your students to write letters to the faculty and staff members that help your school run smoothly. Taking the time to tell someone you appreciate them goes a long way and teaching your students to spread the positivity with an encouraging word or two will help spread the kindness all year long.
To begin, print out the FREE Writing Printable. Start off by teaching your students all about letter writing; identifying a greeting, writing the body of the letter and then ending with a proper closing. Using the printable, have your students choose a faculty member to write to. It helps if you keep a roster of names and have students cross off names once they are completed. You could devote your daily writing time to letter writing for a week or so depending on how large your faculty is. We spend about a week and each student averages 5 to 7 letters a piece. Once the letter is written you can have them add a few colorful foam heart stickers to brighten it up.
In our classroom I keep a Valentine's Day pail filled with stuffed frogs which are perfect for brightening up someone's day. The week of Valentine's Day my students sneak into the mail room and make a few special deliveries each day. They stuff a cute frog and their letter into one of the staff members' mailboxes.
Each personalized letter gets stuffed into a felt Valentine envelope. These are precious and look so cute with the adorable stuffed frogs. Watching the staff members around school read these personalized letters is priceless. Such a small gesture means a whole lot to the faculty and staff at school that are often under appreciated.
Another way to spread the kindness is with kisses...no not real ones, chocolate kisses of course! I keep a stash of Hershey's Kisses on my desk in the small Valentine's pail. I encourage students to spread the kindness to their classmates throughout the day. They ring a little bell on my desk and then give another student a compliment or kind word. Next, they share a Hershey's Hug or kiss with them. This sweet little treat is fun for them and the kind words bring a smile to their classmate's face.
As a teacher I also love to send my students a little message that lets them know how much they mean to me. A fun little Valentine that doubles as a magnet keepsake is the perfect fit. Just use a sharpie marker to write a special personalized message on the back! These puppy valentines are too cute for words!
To close out our week of kindness I treat my students with a special valentine. I thought that these little porcupine Valentines were too cute to resist! With a fun little spiky ball and porcupine card your students are sure to love them! I hope that you take a little time to spread some love and kindness this Valentine's Day.
