As the Yoga Club advisor, I weave mindfulness into each Yoga Club session. We also look for other ways to connect the school community to the things we are practicing and learning. This year, I came across the Kindness Calendar on actionforhappiness.org. My middle school students loved it and created a bulletin board in our hallway, modeling some of the ideas.
Daily Kindness in December
Each day one of my students goes on the announcement speaker, explains that day’s kindness activity and gives an explanation of it. We also have a Yoga Club Instagram account; students take turns posting their acts of kindness. As students in our school spread kindness, they can add a sticker to the calendar.
Here are a few of their ideas:
- Day 1: Encourage others to practice kindness (Share this calendar!)
- Day 2: Make some homemade gifts to give away this festive season
- Day 3: Leave a happy note for someone else to find
- Day 4: Find ways to be kind to yourself today!
- Day 5: Count how many people you smile at today
Create your own with your students and let’s start spreading kindness this season.
Our goal is to see how far we can spread kindness in our school, community, and around the world. Kindness starts with each of us and we create the world that we want to live in.
Stefanie Lachenauer is a 7th and 8th grade teacher of Active Citizenship and Global Leadership and the Yoga Club Advisor at Montgomery Upper Middle School in Skillman, NJ. She is currently completing the Mindful Schools Year-Long Certification. You can contact her here.