The students at MPLS celebrated KINDNESS AND COURTESY by treating others in kind and caring ways.  Students were polite and used good manners in the classrooms, the lunchroom, on the playground and at out-of-school activities.

Lesson Plans

December 1993 Theme

Grade level: elementary
Specific time-table:  1 month (MPLS was December)
Materials:  green construction paper, scissors, student journals

Throughout the month of December, encourage your students to...

• trace their hands on green paper, cut out (at least 12 per student)
• write good deeds that other students do (on a hand) and display in room
• teacher reviews "good deed" hands at end of each day
• hands can be taped up outside of room in shape of a Christmas Tree
• hands can be pinned to students to wear at assembly
• hands (with student's name and good deed) can be put in a box and one drawn for lunch with the principal
• students can reflect in journals about deeds, friendship, kindness and benefits of being courteous to each other

Kindness and Courtesy Activity

This activity was used in the month of December during the school's Kindness and Courtesy Month. With the holiday season we think of giving kindness to others. As a way to highlight this behavior, the students keep track of their kindness and courtesy during the month. The teachers have hands in the classroom. When students see someone being kind or courteous, they get a hand and write that person's name on it and the good deed that they did. Then they put the hand back in a box in the room. At the end of the day, the teachers will read the hands and add any names and deeds that they saw. Other school personnel (secretaries, teachers' associates, janitors, principal) have hands to give out during the day also. Throughout the month the hands are put together to form a Christmas tree and brought to the next assembly. (Glue or tape the hands together in rows with the fingers pointing upwards. The hands should overlap. Start with one at the top and make your rows increasingly bigger. This will look like a Christmas tree when you are done.)

Extensions:

1. Your class may choose a special person that you want to be nice to. It could be the cooks, the teachers' associates, the janitor, or someone in your class.

2. This can be extended into a bulletin board. The idea is to catch the positive acts of kindness and courtesy so that students want to follow this model. You can have any cut out pattern that the students can use to write down acts of kindness and courtesy. It could be petals to make flowers. As the teacher and the students catch kindness and courtesy, they are put together to make a picture on a bulletin board.


3. The student wears the hand during the day (pinned on) and it gets put on the Christmas tree at the end of the day.