Spread Kindess and Love Wherever Life Takes You

Has anyone ever made you feel small or that you were worthless? Have you ever at some point in your life, whether it have been in grade school or your current life, been picked on, bullied, teased, or left out? Have you ever felt like you were unpopular or not important?

We want to tell you that YOU are all special in every single way. Everyone of us is. Each of us has a light and it shines brightly to others around us. No one is more important than anyone else. We are all born into this life and we all eventually leave it. It is just up to us to choose what we do with the time given to us.

Kindness is a virtue. Kindness is showing love and compassion to someone with not being asked or expecting anything in return. We should strive to be kind to everyone we meet. Our words can be a lethal weapon or a healing miracle. We believe people hurting people is the worst, most powerful form of destruction in existence.

We recently read the book called The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule by Stan and Jan Berenstain.

What is the golden rule?

The Berenstain Bears are a family of 5 bears. This family includes: Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Brother Bear (the oldest child), Sister Bear (the middle child),and Honey Bear (the baby). The Berenstain Bears is a very popular children's book series that has been around for over 50 years. These books always have an important life lesson to teach.

This particular book tells about how Sister gets a golden locket for her birthday. It is shaped like a heart and on the inside it says, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” Sister did not quite understand what this meant at first. Her mother explained that this was the golden rule and it was one of the most important rules there is. Mama tells her that “It is called the golden rule, because it is precious, just like gold. But it's not about the gold you wear around your neck or on your finger. It is about the golden treasure we keep inside our own hearts.” Sister still did not really understand what her mother was telling her yet. The next day a new girl comes to Sister's school. How do Sister and her friends act towards this newcomer? Does she eventually learn the meaning of “The Golden Rule”? Read this book to find out!

One good strategy to use for helping students make connections is role playing.

Role playing is when students act out a situation.  This situation can be from a book, a movie, or real life. To help students make connections with the book they are reading, we will have them act the situation out in a fun role playing activity.

We will read the book to the students first.  The students need to pay close attention to the characters and think about how the characters are feeling as you read the book. The students will then do the activity below.

We will have the students first act out the scene where Suzy MacGrizzie was on the playground and no one would play with her.  We will ask the students what you think she was feeling when this happened. If the students do not remember what happened during this scene, the students will then go back and use the book for reference. 

Then the students will think back to a time when they were left out when their classmates are playing.  We will then ask them to ponder the following questions:

1.       Do you think you and Suzy MacGrizzie felt the same way?  And why?

2.       Is there another time in your life that you felt that way?

The students will then role play about that time in their life that they were left out of something.  The students will have to tell us why this time was like the book.  

We will then ask the students about the the golden rule and what they think it means and how they can connect it to their own lives.

Jennifer: I personally feel a deep connection with this book. It hits home in more ways than one. When I was in elementary school, I was bullied, teased, picked on, and left out of a lot of things. True friends for me were rare. It seemed like knowing the golden rule didn't mean much to the kids in my school. That is why when I have my own classroom, the golden rule will be the most important rule. I do not want any child to have to go through what I did. EVER.

We believe that this book would be a great book to show and read to children. Since bullying has become a big thing in schools today, we need to expose children to great morals at a young age. The golden rule is a great thing for children to understand that they need to be kind and nice to others.

Kindness should be an international concept. Please watch this inspirational video. Do you make sure you show kindness on a daily basis?

DON'T FORGET!

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

What did you worry about when you were 9 years old?

We worried about natural disasters, friendships, popularity, and school.

Why don't you tell us a few things you worried about?

American Girl  is a renowned children's book series. The series is split up into many different sub-series. Each sub-series centers around a different girl from different eras in American History. We chose the sub-series about Kit Kittredge. The book we chose from her series was Meet Kit by Valerie Tripp which was book number 1.

"Kit Kittredge is a nine-year-old girl with a nose for news. But since most of the news is about the hard times of the Depression, Kit writes her own newspaper stories. She reports on the happenings at home—like the day Mother invites fussy Mrs. Howard and her son to stay with them. Kit is excited to have a boy her own age to play with, but Stirling causes Kit nothing but trouble. Then, when Dad loses his business because of the Depression, Mother gets a brainstorm that turns the Kittredge household upside down."
                                              ---http://www.americangirl.com/play/historical-character/kit/#page=stories

Kit wants to be a Journalist when she grows up. She loves to make newspapers on her trusty typewriter and give them to her dad when he comes home from work. Her mother's garden club friend Mrs. Howard and her young son, Sterling Howard, come to stay with the Kittredges. One day, Kit finds out that both her and Sterling love baseball so she runs to grab a newspaper article on their favorite player to show him. On her way back into Sterling's room, she opens the door hard on Mrs. Howard who was trying to serve Sterling tea. Mrs. Howard drops the tea tray, and Kit's mother's china is broken. Even though this was an accident, Kit's mother comes down hard on Kit, making her upset. She goes back to her room to write her dad's newspaper and makes the lead story about how it was not fair that Kit got scolded so badly for an accident. Her brother, Charlie, happens to see the newspaper before Dad gets home and tells Kit she should not bother their father with her newspaper today. When she asks why, Charlie tells her their father is about to lose his job. Which is something far more unfair than Kit's accident.

Earlier the book says, "About three years ago, people got nervous about their money and stopped buying as many things as they used to, so some stores had to close down. The people who worked in the stores lost their jobs. Then the factories that made the things the stores used to sell had to close down, so the factory workers lost their jobs too. Pretty soon the people who'd lost their jobs had no money to pay their doctors or house painters or music teachers, so those people got poorer too. Kit was glad that her dad still had his job at his car dealership. She and her best friend Ruthie knew kids at school whose fathers had lost their jobs. They'd seen those fathers selling apples on street corners, trying to earn a few cents a day. Dad said the Depression was like a slippery hole. Once you fell in, it was almost impossible to get out."

The book also has a section in the back where you can learn about things that really happened in the year 1934.

Check out this video about Kit and The Great Depression

This book follows along with SS5H5, “The student will explain how the Great Depression and New Deal affected the lives of millions of Americans.”

The activity that we would have the students do is create a classroom newspaper.

The students would have different jobs in creating the classroom newspaper.

These jobs are as follows:

1.       Reporters

2.       Artists

3.       Journalists

4.       Ad Writers

The Reporters article topics are as follows:

1.       soup kitchens during the great depression

2.       prices of merchandise

3.       President Roosevelt and the New Deal

4.       Stock Market Crash

5.       The Dust Bowl

6.       President Hoover

The Artists will get in pairs with the Reporters to draw pictures that go with the Reporters article topics.

The Journalists will put themselves back into the Great Depression.  They will create life stories about how people lived in the Great Depression. An example is like in the book, Kit’s Dad lost his job.  The Journalists could talk about the effects of that in their day to day life. 

The Ad Writers will create ads about things people were selling during the Great Depression.  An example from the book is people selling apples on the street for 5 cents.

We think this would be an excellent book series for the students in the classroom.  The students would enjoy these books very much.  They are fun, entertaining, and knowledgeable.  They turn hard historical facts into a fun and engaging book.

What would you do if you were living in the Great Depression?