Social Emotional Learning skills are an essential part of student development. Facilitating and navigating the foundational skill of social emotional learning – kindness – with first graders can be challenging, but our efforts to build classroom kindness are so important! Spending time during kindness units on SEL activities and conversations that focus on teaching children the importance of being kind to others is time well-spent. Kindness is contagious!
My SEL: Kindness Unit is interactive and filled with a variety of kindness oriented activities to develop social emotional learning. I use it throughout the school year starting with back to school, continuing through World Kindness Day in November, Random Acts of Kindness Day in February and on through the end of the school year. It’s always a great time to be teaching kindness! You might be familiar with this SEL unit, having seen it mentioned in this Classroom Community post from a few years back. The unit has been updated since then for a cleaner look, which has helped students and teachers. 
Using original poems, a Kindness Pledge, printable practice pages, teaching projectables, RAK cards and a family letter, this unit:
– defines what kindness means and why it’s important- teaches children different ways to show kindness, such as through words, actions and gestures- reads and discusses books suggested for their themes of kindness- has students performing random acts of kindness in the classroom, at home and in the community- discusses kindness in a variety of settings This unit has had some wonderful feedback from teachers who have used it in their primary grade classrooms.
- We used this resource throughout the year. Any time we needed to talk about kindness in our class, I went back to this resource. There is so much included. I liked the book recommendations as well.
- It’s awesome to use when teaching lessons on kindness and respect towards their classmates and other students in school!!!! A couple of parents let me know that their child came home talking about the poems and other things we talked about while using this unit!!
- This was the perfect resource to use to form a classroom community! We also used it during kindness week!
- I am looking forward to using this as it is so well planned and the visuals are terrific. Thank you!
The Kindness Pledge is basically a refrain in my first grade classroom built on the foundation of developing social emotional learning. The pledge is even known by my students and their parents, too! I hope it helps you in your classroom, too. Having a kindness pledge is a touchstone for challenges that arise, which occur frequently in a first grade classroom filled with little ones developing their filters, self-regulation, communication, self-advocacy, and problem-solving skills.
When something comes up and we work to figure it out, we often go back to our kindness pledge to begin the problem-solving process. I’m so proud of the way this unit has impacted my first graders over the years.
Kindness is truly contagious and students who are early adopters of our kindness approach – the pioneers, you could say – gently lead the rest of the class by example and most if not all of my class follows suit. Doors get held open, assistance with shoe tying, zippering and art smocks, nice sticky notes written or pictures carefully drawn and colored and left for someone having a rough day or some sad news…it’s just the best and makes my heart smile all the time!
Feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback! I’m teaching full time in the classroom and will get back to you as soon as possible because I love helping teachers!
