Is it too much to be kind?

“In a world where you can be anything, BE KIND.”
Building on last year’s successful event, Hayfield Elementary School celebrated its second annual “Kindness Week” Nov. 4-8.
Elementary teacher Nicole Smith explained she started the kindness initiative in the school last year and “we had such a great time spreading kindness in our school and community that we decided to continue it.”
In a communication to families before the week began, Smith explained the week was to be “filled with ways for our elementary students to learn, explore and practice kindness.” It was also fun.
Each day was designated a special dress-up day with everyone wearing a Kindness t-shirt or bright colored shirt on Monday. Tuesday was “Crazy for Kindness” day and everyone invited to wear crazy hair; Wednesday “Team Kindness” and wearing favorite sports attire; Thursday was “It’s your Job to be Kind” and dressing in professional clothes. The week ended with “Hayfield Kids are Kind” and dressing in school colors.
There were daily quotes each day that third graders read over the intercom. The overall quote for the week was “In a world where you can be anything, BE KIND!”
Also on Monday, Smith said, community members were invited to join in the “Kindness Tunnel” to greet the elementary students as they arrived at school.
The students also got a Kindness Challenge paper the first day that that included 35 squares. Each square contained a kindness suggestion such as “Hold the door open for someone,” “Call a grandparent just to say hi,” “Return someone’s cart at a store,” and “Pick up 10 pieces of trash.” Students were invited to do as many challenges as they could and color in the appropriate square.
Also this year saw a banner hung in the school cafeteria proclaiming “Be the ‘I’ in Kind.”
Smith explained that the teachers put together a video and sent it to “Jordyn’s Summer Shirt Project!”  The project, Smith said, was started by the family of a girl named Jordyn with autism for her to learn job skills and spread the message “Be kind to everyone.” Hayfield was one of 17 schools in the U.S. to receive a banner from the project.
Hayfield students are encouraged to take pictures with the banner and share them using the hashtags #bekindtoeveryone, #summershirtproject and #worldkindnessday.