Lesson 1- Opening/Romance

What is Kindness- Day 1

Description:
Student Information:
Previous Knowledge:
o This is the first lesson of the unit, so students don’t have any previous
lessons to connect with this.
o Students have all interacted with their peers, and other members of their
community, so they have varying levels of understanding of Kindness and
what it means. Each student brings a unique context to this unit/lesson.
o Students are familiar with journaling, as they keep a writer’s notebook in
the class, which they work on during Daily 5.
Summary Overview:
 During this class, students will be introduced to our unit on kindness. We
will have discussions around a text, What does it Mean to be Kind, and a
short film, Lou. Students will engage in a think-pair-share discussion and try
to connect the short film with the book. This lesson will help students level
out their understandings of what kindness is, and the place of kindness in
our classroom and greater community. Students will then create their first
entry in their kindness journals, in which they will define kindness in their
own terms to help solidify the meaning in their minds.
Objectives:
Curriculum Objectives:
General Outcomes: Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and
represent to…
o GLO 1: Explore thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
o GLO 2: Comprehend and respond personally and critically to oral, print, and
other media texts
Specific Outcomes:
 1.1.1- Express ideas and develop understanding: contribute
relevant ideas and information from personal experiences to group
language activities
 1.2.1- Consider the ideas of others: connect own ideas and
experiences with those shared by others
 2.2.5- Construct meaning from texts: connect situations portrayed
in oral, print, and other media texts to personal and classroom
experiences

Lesson Objectives: At the end of the lesson, students will be able to…
1) Describe what kindness is, and where we see kindness in our own lives,
by participating in class discussion and creation of a class world-cloud.
2) Express the importance of being kind to our peers and others within our
community by analyzing a wordless short film.
 3) Compose a journal entry in which they will define kindness in their own
words, which will be used to guide further exploration through the unit.

Inclusion:
Whole Class LEARNING STYLES
Groups Visual
Pairs Auditory
Individuals Kinesthetic

Adaptations:
 Adaptations will depend on the class
 If necessary, students may use voice-to-text to complete their kindness journal
(this would be the most likely adaptation, but may be different if this lesson was
actually going to be taught in a real classroom)

Materials/Resources:
 What Does it Mean to be Kind by Rana DiOrio
 Lou short film by Pixar
 Word Cloud Maker https://wordart.com/ (see example word cloud below)
 Kindness Journals

Instructions/Procedures:

Introduction Time
 Welcome students into the classroom, get students settled and then
begin. Invite students to sit at the carpet.
 Introduce the lesson:
o Tell students we are starting a new unit today! Our unit is going
to focus on kindness, and what it means to be kind.
o Today we are going to talk about kindness and see if we can
figure out what it means to be kind to our friends, family, and
ourselves.
o Tell students we will be reading a story and watching a video
about kindness, and while we do this, we are going to create a 8 min
word cloud to hang in our classroom!
o At the end of the class, we are going to start a new kind of
journal- a kindness journal.
 Pre-assessment activity- ask students: can someone raise their hand
and tell me what kindness is? What does kindness look like? How
does kindness feel? Let students know that you are going to write
down the words they say them- we are going to create a word cloud
to put on our wall in the classroom! We will revisit this later in the
class.
Body Time
What does it  Let students know that you will be reading them a 6 min
mean to be book about kindness. Tell them to pay close
kind? attention so they can talk about it after!
 Read the story- stop periodically to ask questions or
bring their attention to something.
o For the first few pages, read the prompt, then
get students to answer... example: “does it
mean paying with something other than
money?” students should respond with “no”
 Transition: let students know that we are going to
watch a video now, and then we are going to have a
discussion about the book and video.

Lou- Kindness  Have the video ready to go on the computer and flip
in the open to it.
Schoolyard  Tell students a bit about the video to prime them:
and o The video does not have any words, so we
Think-Pair- need to watch it closely so we can understand
Share it
o The main characters are Lou (he is made out
of toys!) and J.J. (the schoolyard bully)
 Tell students that we will watch the video, and then
have a discussion about it!
 Play video
 After the video finishes, prompt students to think
for a moment about why we watched the video, and 12 min
about how it relates to kindness like we read about
in the book.
 Give students a moment, and then instruct them to
turn to their elbow-partner and have a quick
discussion about kindness in the video and kindness
in the book- how are they connected?
 Invite students to share their thoughts and ideas,
have a discussion around kindness in both of these
texts- Lou tries to show J.J. that by being kind, he
can be happier!
 Transition: Students should make their way back to
their tables- tell them to walk like a penguin back to
their seats!
Kindness  Once students have made it back to their desks, you 10 min
Journal should hold up an example of their kindness
journals, so they know which book you are talking
about.
 Tell students they can find their kindness journals
on their desks- we are going to write a journal entry
to reflect on what we learned today.
 Write prompt, and sentence starter on board:
What is Kindness? Kindness is ___________________.
 Tell students that their job is to answer the question
on the board- they should write down what they
think kindness is in their journals. Instruct students
 to use the sentence starter if they are not sure,
otherwise they have 10 minutes to write!
 Transition: tell students to find select one person
from their table groups to bring their journals to
the bin, and then return back to their seats.

Conclusion Time
 Once students are back in their seats, get students to remind you
what we learned today. What is kindness? Is there anything new we
should add to our word cloud?
 Remind students that this is an important thing to know about,
3 min
because kindness helps us to be better friends and to be better people
in the world. We need to learn more about this, so we can make a
difference in our community!

Assessment:
 This lesson will use only formative assessment, as it is the introductory lesson for
our unit.
 Students will engage in class discussion which will help us to create a word-cloud of
words that describe kindness for the students, this will be used partially as a pre-
assessment of their knowledge.
 Students will engage in a think-pair-share when analyzing Lou, which will help them
to develop their own understanding and thoughts.
 Students will also complete an entry in their kindness journal which will help them
to define what kindness means to them- I will review their entries after class and
use these to guide further exploration in the unit.

Teacher Notes:
 Have kindness journals ready to go, and on the desks. When they come back from
music they will come directly to the carpet.
 Have video preloaded on your computer, so it is ready to go
 Have word cloud maker preloaded as well; type words in as students say them.