A Bunch of Kindness (RACKs)

My class completed a bunch of RACKS this week. We couldn't help ourselves, it was addicting.  We used this free pack of notes by Diamond Mom - mainly since there were 9 per page (and I wanted to save on copies).  We took a bunch of new books, wrapped them up, and delivered them to different grade levels with a RACK note.  

Then we took more RACK notes and taped them to a bunch of pencils to deliver to the primary students.  Other students were writing notes to our school parent helpers to put in a basket in the office.  Then we took time as a class to make cards for our Reading Buddies (added a little candy cane to them), and wrote thank you notes for the office.  It was a little bit of chaos, with a huge helping of fun.

Today we made posters for the middle school teachers with the saying, "We can't wait to be in your class when we grow up." The kids signed and delivered them too. They also signed cards for their PE teachers and gave a candy bar. 

The fun part was seeing the smiles and random thank you emails of staff that had been RACKed, and they didn't know who was behind it. The kids were tickled hearing the emails. :) So glad that we were able to do something to reach all 9 grade levels. 

After all of that, we did a little RACK for each other.  I had a bunch of these gingerbread men that I've held onto for the past 5 years… since I used to do the Me Doll project back in 2nd grade…  anyhow, the kids chose a person and wrote their name on the person's belly.  Then the kids flipped them over so the backs were showing on their desks.  I gave them 15 minutes and they walked around with their pens, writing compliments or adjectives to describe their classmates.    

I collected them, hole punched, and tied some yarn to the top.  These are now high above our carpet area as a reminder of all the kindness in our classroom.  

I hope this helps you in some way!  Have a great day!  

Revisiting Bucket Filler

Hi everyone!  Hope you are having a great day.  I'm somewhere on the ocean heading to Alaska at the moment, but wanted to do a few reruns when I'm gone.

Today I wanted to revisit my Bucket Filler area.  

Here is the first post I did last year (talking about 2 school years ago in my classroom) that explains how I run it in my room.  

My area looked like the picture below.

Then last year I decided to change it a little since with the shoe organizer being completely vertical it was hard for my shorter kids to reach their buckets without pulling it off the wall - so it turned into this...

Same 2 shoe racks, but I used cups inside the pockets after cutting it in half.  The cups held up (though they were really dusty last week when I pulled them out).  After 2 school years of it over in the corner, I decided that next year it's going to be on the main front wall (along with my information/behavior/helper/star of the week/weekly goals, etc).

So, it's not at all done yet at all - basically I did what I could the last day of school - but you can see that the white shoe organizers are under half the whiteboard.  (Yes, I thought I was taking a picture, but instead hit the video button.)  It's not a video, I promise.  Since I still had a ton of extra pockets that I don't need, I turned it into 4 groups of 8 pockets by cutting the 3rd row off.

Hope this helps someone.  I highly recommend the book if you don't have it.  Even my 4th graders enjoy it.   

Have a great day!

My Bucket Filler Area

Have you read that book, Have you Filled a Bucket Today?  It's a good book.  I started reading it last year with my class, it's all about how words can help or hurt someone's feelings.  Basic stuff, but it gives the visual that our hearts are like buckets.  Fill them up and we feel good, saying mean stuff can hurt ourselves and others.  That we want to be a "Bucket Filler", not a "Bucket Dipper".

In my classroom this year I took it to a different level.  Last year we just did the book as a read aloud and discussed it.  This year we read the book, discussed it, and the kids each had their own "buckets". Yes, it is just 2 plastic shoe organizers put side by side, but that simple mail system had my students being kind to each other the entire year.  The entire year!  

The first week of school, after we read the book, I gave my students a colored index card.  They wrote their name and their class number.  Then I stuck the cards into the pockets and we were ready to get started.

It is a pretty easy set up.  In the yellow bucket I had index cards.  When the kids wanted to give a compliment, or thank someone for helping them or being kind, they just grabbed a card and wrote it down.  I made them include a To: __________ and From: __________ along with the message.  

After they were done writing, they placed it into my red bucket.  I went through the cards and made sure that they were all appropriate.  Some kids throughout the year tried to pull just writing a note to their buddies on it.  This wasn't note time, rather the cards had to stay with the purpose.  If they wrote a note, it wasn't delivered and I called the student over to make sure they understood the rules.  

The students do like to be delivers.  After I checked them at Friday lunch (I would collect all week), I would pass them off to my student helpers, who would deliver them into the right mailbox.  At the end of the day on Friday, when as a class we are passing out the work to take home, students could go over and grab out their compliment cards.  It was an amazing thing every week to see - kids that didn't think they had friends realized they do.  Kids that are shy, still could write a message, and someone else would initiate a friendship.  It helped my class to bond with each other.  I'm definitely going to continue this for future years.

Hope this helps someone!