PPBF: A Little Spot Of Love

Ten years ago, we sent a blank heart home and invited families to tell us what they love about Bales Intermediate, their child's third-fifth campus. As they rolled in, we found the perfect love spot at the entrance of our school and displayed them in conjunction with our 100th-day celebration.

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PPBF: Hidden

Today I'm grateful for humankind and thoughtful kindness.

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PPBF: One Can Be

Happy August; don't you just love a serene summertime sunset?

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The Dignity of Their Experience

So yesterday I was running an errand for a friend,

and look at this brilliant banner that caught my eye.

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Snapshots In Time

Today I'm reflecting about snapshots in time.

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Investing Your Time Affluence

Today I'm excited because we're off soon to see these

beauties blanket the ditches, medians and fields.

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PPBF: I Am One

Hello and welcome to the Corner on Character; today I'm still on a happiness high from our son's wedding in Michigan last Saturday.

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A Dozen Ways To Share Kindness

The belief that April showers bring May flowers 

has me thinking about this Karen Salmansohn invitation:

What if, when we shower people with kindness,

certain flowers (or other kind acts) would bloom?

Well, that's how the kindness boomerang works.

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Need Some Help?

Happy Easter weekend. How will you celebrate?

I'm still savoring this kind interaction from earlier this week

after we mowed the lawn for the first time this season.

The mist that dampened the air was gaining momentum; 

as John and I furiously worked to get the sidewalks swept, 

a sweet superhero came by on his scooter 

and waved as he slowly rolled by. 

I recognized him as Hudson, the neighbor down the street whom I'd met a few times before; I knew he was transferring to my former school, so I asked him how his school year was going and how he liked Bales. He asked what I like about being a school counselor and how long I had stayed at that job.

Then, as if out of the blue, I heard three of the kindest words: 

Need some help?

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PPBF: Who Will I Be?

Wait, what? Picture Perfect Book Friday on a Thursday? Yep, because I'm leaving town and this is a title you will not want to miss. It's the perfect PPBF pick to kick off November, a month to celebrate gratitude and service.

Title: Who Will I Be?

Author: Abby Huntsman

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Volunteering Kindness

We've done it, just finished our 15th year of our Knit-for-Service Club meetings. Doesn't this year's group of volunteer needle-workers look adorable?

Third, fourth and fifth graders volunteer their time,

to knit a cap to help save the life of an underweight preemie.

Photo credit: Save The Children

Unravel details about our 15 years of knitting to serve
 {here}, {here} and {here}.

Here's our keepsake Knit One, Save One video; 
these young knitters are now high school seniors about to graduate. 

I'm told a few of them still use their skill to help others.

Volunteering is contagious like that; once you get the ball rolling, you'll want to keep on helping out. Lisa Currie from The Ripple Kindness Project wrote about the helper's high in this kindness post. Volunteering has been shown to help improve the health and well-being of volunteers and donors.

And no, you don't have to have a special skill to be a volunteer;

anyone can see a need and fill a need. Consider these opportunities right in your own neighborhood: washing a car, raking some leaves, shoveling some snow, mowing a lawn, watering some plants.

Need a nudge launching a volunteer campaign of your own? Why not sign up with WE Volunteer Now, an inspired way to organize a student volunteer activity. Whether you want to visit a senior home, donate to a food pantry or raise awareness about a cause that your kids are passionate about—like safe driving or recycling— this campaign is an easy way to get started.

 Simply enter here on WeAreTeachers and you’ll get an instant download from WE Volunteer Now, full of information on how to start a volunteer campaign at your school. You’ll also get access to grade-specific lessons you can use right away. 

WE Volunteer Now Campaign Resources include:

·       A step-by-step guide on how to get started with service learning curriculum in your classroom

·       Volunteering ideas

·       Teacher checklists to keep you on track

·       A worksheet for you to complete with your class—by the end you’ll have a solid idea of which volunteering option is best for you!

·       We Volunteer Now curriculum

Made possible by The Allstate Foundation, the WE Volunteer Now grants help schools and youth groups in their effort to give back to their local communities in a creative and unique way. As a bonus, 500 schools will receive a $250 grant to use towards their volunteer project. The grants will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis to all eligible schools/groups, to be used toward supporting your volunteer project. The eligible school or youth organization must:

·       Have an educator, administrator, or adult group leader to fill out this application 

·       Be based in the U.S. and registered in the WE Schools program

·       Plan to use the provided funds between October 2017 – October 2018

·       Include students/youth participants in grades K-12

·       Participate in the WE Volunteer Now Campaign

Check out the reasons to join WE schools {here}, then enjoy these benefits:

Inspire your students to make a real difference. When you join the WE movement, you’re giving your students a chance to make a difference in their neighborhood and in the world. Together you’ll find something you are passionate about and can work toward as a group.

Fit service into your curriculum with ease. You signed up and took the first step. Now, you can use the WE Schools Kit to figure out which action or campaign your students want to work on throughout the year. The kit is packed with ideas for teachers and students to brainstorm ideas and set goals.

Earn your way to WE Day. Once you’ve decided on a project, finished your good deed, and reported your results, you’ll get a chance to earn your way to WE Day. It’s a stadium-sized event (there are six held annually in select cities across the country!) that brings together amazing speakers and performers. And YOU and YOUR students could be honored; students can tune in and watch live.

Be a part of something huge. Last year, 4,200 schools across the United States signed up and participated in WE Schools. That’s 1.3 million students! Plus, over 3.1 million viewers watched the WE Day Special on CBS this past August.

Help your students earn service learning hours and AP credits. High, middle, and even elementary schools are requiring students to log the time they’ve spent on service learning and volunteering. The WE Schools framework gives your students more options to gain volunteering time in ways integrated with your lessons.

Instill a love of volunteerism in your students (that they’ll have forever) just like we've done with our knitters. In a hectic world that values achievements and grades, it can be tough for students (and their parents) to make the time for giving back. WE Schools and the WE Volunteer Now campaign show us all how accessible volunteering can be.

Sign up for WE {here}.  

NOTE: This post is brought to you by WeAreTeachers, the Allstate Foundation and WE. Please join me in thanking them for their sponsorship.

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The Kindness Olympics

Happy Random Acts of Kindness Week. We've been on such a kindness kick at school this year that it almost feels like we're training for the Kindness Olympics, as if there were such a thing. We kicked off the year by collecting quarters so that our Student Council leaders could buy some fleece to cut and tie these beautiful blankets to help warm up our friends who are struggling with homelessness. We collected enough quarters to buy the fleece for fifty blankets . . . 

and fill Mr. Whitlock's van for distribution in Houston.

We had just finished with the fleece when we received this incredible donation of blankets from our friends at Warm Up, America!, knit, crocheted, and tied as housewarming gifts for those friends who are just now returning home after Hurricane Harvey displaced them six months ago.

What a delight it has been to distribute this generous gift. Even as I was finding homes for these gorgeous throws, we were busy in Art class creating our Kindness Rocks. Just this past week, this one came in from a school in Racine, Wisconsin.

At the end of January, we welcomed the Kids For Peace Kindness Team . . . 

 to build our Peace Garden and dedicate our Peaceful Hearts Playground. We are so grateful to GameTime, Hasbro, Kind Coins contributors, and our PTO for our new state-of-the-art play space.

Our #kindcoins spokesperson, Jet Stream Jax, has gone on location several times these past few weeks to video chat from the playground with schools who donated to help make our dream play space a reality. It's super fun to watch him interact with other kindness crusaders from coast to coast. 

Before we could even start breaking in our new Challenge Course, it was time to launch our annual Sweets for Our Soldiers campaign. We made these colorful, creative Valentines for our troops in Counseling Classes . . . 

and sent out this request for baked goods.

And did our school family ever respond in kind; just look at this table filled with kindness from our kitchens waiting for our student leaders to put together our priority mail packages.

Thirty six of these care packages are heading to the ten deployed servicemen that we adopted at the time of this post.

And for fun, we cut up our PSA posters like this one . . . 

 and put them in the boxes to give the soldiers a puzzle to build.

We are so grateful to the Friendswood Rotary for their

$500 donation to help defray the cost of postage.

You may think that we're done donating for a while, but just this week I saw some adorable PSA posters being hung in our halls, announcing a Pet Supply drive to help our shelters who are still housing Hurricane Harvey rescue animals. 

See what I mean about the Kindness Olympics? Just imagine if the world were as determined, dedicated, and driven to warm our world with kindness as our olympic athletes are to win a medal for their countries.

I'm so thankful to work in a place where we truly are 

in training for the Kindness Olympics all year long.

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Kindness Rocks

Happy new year. Today I'm still energized from yesterday's afternoon with the school counselors in Spring Branch ISD. What a satisfying time I had with them, leading a self-care learning session. One of the counselors gave me this affirming feedback: You are the kind of presenter I love, the kind that makes us feel. 

It made my heart super happy.

On another note, many of you know that Hurricane Harvey put a damper on a lot of activities last semester, including our annual Pinwheels for Peace project, which we had to cancel, so this week I've been partnering with our Art teacher as our learners painted their Kindness Rocks for our alternative idea, a Peace Garden. What a blast it has been, to watch this new teacher in action working with and coaching our students.

One of the things I really appreciated after our first class with fourth graders was when Ms. Giamfortone asked the students this reflection question: What's something that you noticed about someone else's rock? What a beautiful way to elevate empathy as students work alongside one another to paint a positive peaceful message on their rocks. 

At the end of the month, our families will gather to paint a rock.
We are so grateful to Grace Church School in New York for their generous donation to help us build our healing Peace Garden!

Click the image to go to the Kids For Peace website. 

Then today after school, I grabbed the character cam and caught our Student Council in this kind act, tying blankets to warm up our friends in Houston who are struggling with homelessness. 

StuCo leaders invited our students to each bring in 25 cents ... 

and ended up collecting $200 in quarters to purchase the fleece.

Our donation of 50 blankets will undoubtedly warm a lot of hearts.

I know that watching these kindness ambassadors certainly warmed mine.

On the personal front, I put my #oneword2018 {vulnerability} to the test when we took our family skiing last week.

The reason we went was to celebrate the boys having both graduated this past year. They wanted an experience instead of a party, so we planned this trip to give downhill skiing a try. 

The snow that started to fall on the afternoon of our last day on the slopes was a huge scoop of ice cream on our celebratory cake.

If you've ever gone skiing, then you know that it's not as easy as it looks. You have to go into it knowing you're going to fall down. Maybe a lot. It's a good idea to take a lesson and then it's another good idea to go slow to go fast. It's a lot like life, really, and it made me feel really vulnerable. But we persevered and made it off of the bunny slopes onto the green slope aptly called Rookie.

It was an amazing adventure and everyone at Monarch Mountain was so courteous, patient and helpful.

We also carved out time to visit St. Elmo,

highly regarded as Colorado's most enchanting ghost town.

Look closely and you might just be able to see a face 

in that upper lefthand window. 

So haunting.

So quiet now.

Enjoy this mindful moment and see.

I can't help but wonder what kind of character lessons

the teachers (and life) taught in this abandoned school house.

I hope that 2018 brings fresh, new, one-of-a-kind adventures.

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