The Jelly Donut Difference

In the beginning of the year (well, really throughout the whole year), we talk about friendships and showing kindness.  This is such a huge part of year!  I emphasize that we are a school family on day 1 to day 180.  We do lots of activities and read many books learning how to accept, respect, and show love to each other.  Our school motto is Love One Another, so they hear this a lot.

They begin to become more aware that they are not the only ones in the class.  They have to be patient, wait their turn, show compassion, and learn how to be kind to each other.  We are family.

Maria Dismondy writes so many amazing books that are perfect for character education.  This week we read The Jelly Donut Difference.  This book was such a heartfelt story about showing kindness to a lonely neighbor.  It was such a sweet book!  The students loved it, and it really made them think.

We did some interactive writing on a chart of how we can be kind at school and at home.  They each thought of their own ways and wrote them on the chart.

 They each wrote about how they can show kindness and made a donut with sprinkles!  (Bonus: adding fine motor whenever possible!)
They did such a great job and had so much fun!!!  We have been working a lot on matching upper and lower case letters, so this was added to their stations this week with a fun donut on the cards.
Another group worked on counting by matching the number of sprinkles to numbers 0-10.

Kind of makes you hungry?  Ha ha!

Of course, we could not end the day without having a jelly donut!!!  Oh, they were SO surprised!!  Big smiles!