This weekend was “World Kindness Day”! And not that we can’t all use a little extra kindness every day, but having a moment like this is a great way to kickstart classroom activities around kindness. I used to celebrate this in my classroom in a lot of different ways, and often for a whole week. A @Aimee_DeFoe and I sometimes would team teach a kindness themed activity in a mixed age group - with the 2nd graders coming to help the Kindergarten class with something, and vice versa.
We thought it could also make for a great VEX 123 Activity - and Kindness Quest was born! Here’s the nuts and bolts:
-
Brainstorm 5 Acts of Kindness and write them down.
-
Place them on the Tile and put your 123 Robot in a corner.
-
Code your robot to drive to an Act of Kindness, and ‘Act Happy’.
-
Then YOU go do the Act of Kindness for someone in your school community!
There are so many ways to inspire our students to do acts of service or acts of kindness, and why not use the 123 Robot as motivation? You could add more acts to your ‘Kindness Quest’ and challenge students to do them all over the course of a day or a week. Challenge another class to a “Kindness Quest” and see who can bring MORE acts of kindness to your school community in a given time frame.
How do you encourage kindness in your classroom?
4 Likes
One thing working on this activity with @Audra_Selkowitz reminded me of is how important play is for helping students develop kindness and empathy. Whether your students are playing with a 123 robot, or acting out pretend scenarios, play gives students the opportunity to try out different actions and reactions in a safe space. And I am not just thinking of kindergarteners here - older students also need time to play! If you are in a situation where you don’t have time or space to work unstructured free play into your day, you could set up an area of your classroom with VEX 123 or VEX GO, a field, and some props or art supplies, and have your students create some open-ended projects with a friend or two. That way, they are working on computer science and robotics and playing at the same time! What could be more fun?
1 Like
@Audra_Selkowitz @Aimee_DeFoe I love this! We celebrate Kindness Month in February every year. We challenge the kids to come up with random acts of kindness. This will be a great addition. @Desiree_White-Price @Danielle_McCoy we can add this to our community circles as well!
3 Likes
@Tina_Dietrich @Danielle_McCoy I am going to incorporate a book with this topic. I am not sure what book I would like to do yet. I am also going to use some of the SES labs to give students more opportunities to use Vex to express how they are feeling. Please pass along what you come up with so that I can share with staff. I will also do the same.
2 Likes
This is such a great Social Emotional Learning (SEL) tool! I’ve seen acts of kindness cards, or students can even create their own. The students can code their code bases to drive to the cards and then complete the act of kindness! (Almost like a game of Scoot!) but incorporating VEX!! 
1 Like
I LOVE that this idea is getting revisited now! @Desiree_White-Price if you need any book recommendations to connect to, I’m happy to help. Just let me know a particular area of SEL you’re looking to focus on, and I’ll dive into my SEL bookshelf 
@Tina_Dietrich and @Danielle_McCoy something I used to do with my class (usually before winter break, but you can do it any time) was an “Acts of Kindness Calendar”. Like an advent calendar, we strung envelopes with Acts of Kindness inside each across a bulletin board. Each day we opened it up and at some point during the day, completed the Act. Sometimes they were simple, like “Help a friend at clean up time” or “Give 3 compliments to 3 people in class”, others were more involved like “Make kind mail messages for another class” or even “Decorate the Principal’s Office as a surprise!” I feel like you could incorporate something similar with VEX challenges that involve acts of kindness
1 Like
@Audra_Selkowitz Yes, I would love book suggestions. I am always looking for new books to introduce to the students.
@Desiree_White-Price Here are some of my favorites and some ways you could use the book with the 123 Robots to get you going:
Be a bucket filler! The bucket filling series is a personal favorite, and an old standby for me. The way these books explain the idea of kindness as benefitting yourself and others (and the inverse) is accessible and tangible for kids. Have You Filled a Bucket Today and How Full Is Your Bucket are two to get you started. I used to use these often in my class, and periodically when we needed a boost in our kindness levels, we’d do things like a ‘Bucket Brigade’ where we tried to do as many bucket filling acts of kindness as we could in a day or week.
You could use these as a jumping off point for great discussion, and incorporate the robots by having kids sort bucket filling and bucket emptying ideas with the 123 Robot. Drive the goodies into the bucket, and send the others out.
Be Kind - You could do a similar situation with the book Be Kind. It’s a great conversation starter, and could be really good to have kids create their own stories based on the one in the book to then code their robot to do something like take the ‘kind’ path when given a choice.
If you need a reminder about tone of voice, I used to use Caps for Sale for this one. In the story, the cap seller balances all the hats on his head for his walk through town - then falls asleep under a tree and the monkeys in the tree take his hats. In the actual text the monkeys give them back when the seller yells at them. In my reading, the monkeys only give them back when the seller calms down and finally asks kindly. It’s a silly story that you could reenact with the robot, and towers of hats on the Art Ring- and kids have to collect the hats from monkeys all over the Field. While they’re coding, it’s a great opportunity to practice how to ask for things and speak to others kindly (even when we’re frustrated).
Hope this is helpful - if there are ever specific SEL topics/behaviors/situations you’re looking for help with, please let me know - I’m happy to come up with 123 Activities that can help foster positive behaviors and SEL in the classroom
@Audra_Selkowitz Thank you so much for the ideas. We are super excited to have some new ideas to end the school year.
