Early Childhood and Lower School Commit to Kindness During Valentine's Week

February 15, 2019

As an International Baccalaureate World School, the IB Learner traits are integrated throughout Léman's academic program starting in early childhood and through 12th grade. One of the attributes valued in an IB learner is caring and compassion for others and the world around us. During the week of Valentine's Day, when we celebrate "love," students across the Center for Early Childhood and the Lower School are focusing specifically on kindness. Students in PreK3 were asked to visualize an invisible bucket that is filled with good feelings when you exchange acts of kindness with others. Students created their own buckets out of paper cups which they filled with pom-poms each time they did a kind act for their classmates. In the classroom there is also a new "Kindness Tree" where children add a "kind leaf" when they make someone else feel happy by helping, listening, sharing, cheering or giving compliments, encouraging them to recognize the importance of these acts in themselves and others.

Kindness was also a pervading theme in Lower School classrooms this week, as students celebrated Random Acts of Kindness Day, a day to practice kindness and pay it forward. Each class observed the day in unique ways including creating hearts which they exchanged with their classmates when they received a kind act, engaging in "chalk talks" where they explored the concept of kindness and engaged in a conversation around times they've experienced gratefulness and empathy, exchanging kind notes with each other expressing appreciation for their classmates, and reading books including Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson to look at how authors use illustrations to better understand the characters' emotions. Each of these lessons and activities ties into Léman's commitment to valuing empathy, compassion and respect, principles that are the essential and enduring tenets of our school community.