Unlimited Kindness & Gratitude

Today I'm excited because my guest post on Mindfulness Strategies For Educators (and other caregivers!) is now live at Free Spirit Press.

Click to image to read the post.

I am challenged by, but also really enjoy, assignment writing;

hopefully you'll find some useful suggestions.

I'm also tickled pink by how this mindset visual turned out.

Not only because our SEARCH students helped fill it up

by sharing their fixed and growth mindset thoughts,

but because of how I got ahold of the brain.

A year or so ago, this board I'd seen on Twitter really caught my eye. I liked it so much, in fact, that I asked Amanda Mann, the educator who posted it, for permission to share it in my presentations and on the blog. Doesn't it just pop?

Fast forward to a month or so ago, when out of the blue I got an email from Mr. Green, a second grade teacher in PA, asking me if the brain on this board was hand-drawn or purchased. I wrote back that I didn't know, but that I could find out. So off to Twitter I went; it wasn't long before Amanda put me in touch with Michele Gallagher, the artist behind this amazing brain. I offered to trade a copy of my book for a copy of that brain; she did me one better and sent the entire board.

I traced the brain before sending the package on to Pennsylvania
and my friend Caryn kindly colored it for us.

Click image for source: www.charactercounts.org

That's how kindness and gratitude work. When we live generously and give lavishly, kindness and gratitude always make their way back because they are in unlimited supply.

Two other cyberspace collaborators recently gave copies of the book away at their Professional Development learning sessions.

 Look at how happy it makes people to receive a kindness!

Here, Amy, another teacher in PA, is getting a copy from Lisa,

author of A Case For Kindness. More gratitude and happiness.

If you're looking for a new book about kindness,

to put an exclamation point on its importance,

you must check out Alexis Bloomer's Kindness Is Key.

It tackles the topic of bullying from a kindness vantage point, prompting students to look outside of themselves and appreciate and celebrate our uniqueness.

Encourage your students to take the kindness pact in the back,

or write one of their own based on this brilliant addition to the text.

Kindness, now that looks AmAzInG on you!