Kindness Matters

This week in my second grade Religious Education class, we talked about kindness and how God and Jesus have ALWAYS shown us kindness.  The kids told me ways that they have shown kindness to others.  They each needed to write at least 5 kind deeds on the paper links.  None of them had a hard time filling out the five and many filled out six or seven.                                                                                                                                                    

I asked them if five kind deeds seemed like a lot.  Most answered no.  Then we attached all of the links together.  I asked, does this seem like a lot of kind deeds.  They all answered yes this time.  I explained that the number of kind deeds didn't really change.  That their five deeds added to the rest but it started with just ONE kind deed.  This helped show the kids that even by doing one kind deed, that they are making a difference.  We also talked about how kind deeds can be contagious!  So just by smiling, our simple kind deed can make a BIG difference in the life of someone we just pass by.

     After talking about kindness and linking our deeds together, we hung them up in our classroom.  I asked them who has shown them kindness.
Of course they listed parents, teachers, friends, family, etc.  Then I asked if anyone gave up their life for them.  Jesus!  I asked if anyone took away their sins.  JESUS!  To see the connections of their small kind deeds to Jesus' HUGE kind deed was amazing.  We talked about how Jesus performed miracles as his kind deeds but that his disciples are asked to do any kind deed- they don't have to be as big as Jesus'.

     After reading out of our book and some Bible verses, we decided to do some RANDOM acts of kindness.  We talked about how Jesus didn't go about bragging about all of the miracles that he performed.  He actually taught to keep your good deeds to yourself.  Only God needs to know the good that you do, after all HE'S the only one that really matters.  So, we decided to work on some simple random acts.  The kids cut out these beautiful cards made by Kids Activities Blog and they're FREE!  I printed them on card stock.

     
     We had a couple of rules.  You could only use 2 cards at home or for your family members and you couldn't brag about your kind deed!  I wanted the kids to remember that kindness is contagious, so we should try to pass it along and get it to go as far as possible.