How we became Kindness Ninjas

A class up in Canada (Joysofkinder) started The Kindness Ninja movement and sent us an invitation to become Kindness Ninjas! It included a guide written by them, directions, the Kindness Ninja Pledge, a Kindness Ninja Master, a plaque, and two headbands. I went out and bought a 3’ x 3’ piece of felt and made ninja headbands for the class, then presented the kids with the kit! We read their guide, put on our kindness ninja headbands, took the pledge, put our thumbprint on the plaque to seal our pledge and voila! We were now official Kindness Ninjas! The kids could not wait to do our first RAK (Random Act of Kindness)!

I mentioned they could change the world with kindness and they were very doubtful. “We can’t change the world,” was heard over and over. We read the book Ordinary Mary’s Extrordinary Deed. It’s about how one girls random act of kindness in the end affected millions of people. One little girl ended up changing the world through her on little act. It really helped them understand how powerful their acts of kindness can be!



It was Mrs. Rigg’s Birthday so we decided to RAK her! They were so excited! They painted a banner to hang outside her door.

She was so surprised and said she felt so loved. She also wondered who in the world the kindness ninjas were! What was really cool was our act of kindness inspired her to have her class do an act of kindness for another teacher. When I told th skids, they saw how there acts of incense was already spreading kindness around our school!



Our next act of kindness was to make a book for Miss Reese filled with kind words about her! 



We got ready to deliver it to her room without being seen! We had been practicing our stealth ninja moves!





We had brainstormed kind words when we made Miss Reese’s book. I set up an area where they could write notes of kindness to friends and family. This was a very popular station with good authentic writing! 

Our Next RAK was to create posters that would encourage others to choose kindness.

We used our stealth ninja moves to hang them up where there was a lot of traffic before anyone could see us!



We often repeat our pledge to help us remember to choose kindness that day!



Next, we decided to RAK our beloved Literacy Lab Teacher, Mrs. Coberly! They painted hearts and wrote words of kindness on them to Mrs. Coberly. More authentic writing experiences! That is when they always do their best writing!





Using our stealth ninja moves, we taped them all to Mrs. Coberly’s door.







She was so happy! She came up and told us that it made her day and she planned on spreading the kindness, but wondered if we had any idea who the kindness ninjas were? The kids all said they had no idea! They really want to keep their identity a secret!

They came up with the idea of sending out Kindness Ninja kits like the one we had received! It was perfect because I had been getting requests on social media for kits. We studied maps so that we could figure out where we were sending the kits and keep track.





They painted Kindness Ninja Masters.







We made “A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming a Kindness Ninja (more authentic writing happening!) and I typed up directions, the pledge and made plaques, then cut headbands. 



I put them in envelopes to send off. Unfortunately, the ones going out of the U.S. were going to cost $10 to send and I had fourteen that needed to be sent internationally. So unfortunately, I had to take the Kindness Ninja Master out of the international ones. The ones sent within the U.S. came with Kindness Ninja Masters. 

We told them to tag us on social media when they did their Random Acts of Kindness. We can’t wait to see how we have helped spread kindness all over the world! I am so thankful to the class from Joysofkinder who sent us our invite and started this wonder wat to teach kids about how kindness affects the world! 

We will keep you updated as we continue our Random Acts of Kindness!

Creating Our Barefoot Sensory Path and the Importance of Outdoor Play

Our school has an Outdoor Learning Committee that I am a part of.  We all feel very strongly that the environment where the children play outside is just as important as the environment inside our school. We have worked hard to make our playground an area where the kids can run, exercise explore and yes...learn!

Outside play plays an important role in children's development!  They are working gross motor muscles and getting must needed exercise.  They learn how to solve problems such as when social disagreements arise. They learn empathy as they help friends who get hurt. They learn to take risks and see where their limits are and feel empowered as they take those risks and succeed.  They create games and role play. They learn science concepts as they discover things in nature and learn to look closer and ask questions about what they see as they discover new things.  They learn kindness as they try to save an insect in danger or nurture a plant.  They are literally learning about life and life skills as they play outside, so we knew the environment needed to support that.

We had an area that we were having some problems with in the middle of our asphalt area.  We wanted to turn it into something all of the kids could explore and benefit from and decided to create a Barefoot Sensory Path. We came up with a design and my husband figured out how to make it so that it would be sturdy and last. Our amazing PTO gave us funds to purchase the materials and we had fun shopping at Lowes for items that would provide the sensory experiences we were hoping for.

Our team came in on a Saturday and went to work. Our maintenance team had dug the area down four inches so that it would be even with the asphalt. We put down a layer of paver sand, and then the 4x4's.

We glued some materials to 2x2 pieces of plywood.

The sections were all 2x2. We filled the sections with paver base and tamped it solid.

My son even came and helped!

Here is the finished frame.

Of course, we had to test it out!

Here is the finished path!! We were so excited for the kids to try it!

It was a huge success!!  The kids absolutely loved walking on it with bare feet, crawling on it and feeling with their hands and even laying in it enjoying the warmth radiating from it from being in the sun.

Another new area we created was an area to create roads, ramps, etc. using scrap wood, cars, signs and other loose parts. This lovely lady below had the vision for this area!

We also added an area to really work those gross motor muscles. Mr. Doyle created a boundary to keep it all contained to one area. We filled it with stumps, logs, and large branches.  The kids have created obstacle courses and love lifting these up to show how strong they are!  They jump, balance and create here. They collaborate and problem solve.  They use both critical and creative thinking skills. This is a great area to develop 21st Century Learning Skills as they play!

For our nature lovers, we have an area with plants for them to explore and observe.  Some are edible such as peppermint and fennel.  We have cone flowers, milkweed, irises, sunflowers and more.  This area is a great place to explore and observe insects also!

Here are some other things on our playground where they can let lose and have fun!

Our playground is still a work in progress!  We have many more ideas that we want to implement some day!  One step at a time!