Polk County Middle School spent the month of October thinking about and doing acts of compassion toward others as part of Kindness Month, sponsored by the school’s counselors.
All classrooms were given a kindness calendar with a suggestion of something kind that everyone could do every day. The month kicked off with all students and staff receiving a kindness bracelet that read Be a Kind Wolverine. Throughout the month, students watched inspirational kindness videos and heard announcements about different ways to be kind.
Teachers also provided different kindness lessons in their classrooms to go along with the theme for the month. For example, in Cindy Dusenbury’s sixth grade classes, she had students create a Word document and each student had to go around the room and type a positive statement or compliment about each other. This activity emphasized kindness but also helped the sixth graders get to know each other a little better. Dusenbury hung up the signs outside her classroom for everyone to see.
As a kind service project, students and staff were challenged with a food drive competition. PCMS collected more than 1,200 items to give to Thermal Belt Outreach and Steps to Hope.
As a culminating school-wide activity, students were given the opportunity to have their photo made in front of the KIND bulletin board at PCMS. The I was left out and students were able to the I in KIND. All photos were printed and will be hanging up throughout the year to remind students to choose to be kind.
To wrap up Kindness Month, teachers were on the lookout for students being kind. Once they saw a student being kind, they gave them a “caught being kind” card.
