Super heroes of love and kindness


journey began around Valentine’s day. We talked so much about love it seemed the perfect time to start a conversation about kindness. What is kindness?  What are ways we are kind?  What are ways sometimes we are unkind?  We got so many answers.....



We introduced the word “empathy”. Developmentally for this age group empathy is a bit of a stretch, but important to talk about just the same. An understanding starts on a basic level. How are we the same, how are we different? We share so much. Feelings are something we all have. When we are in touch with all our feelings, we can better recognize these same feelings in our friends. This project was born from our kindness talks and nurtured by the children’s love of  stories. 




The children were asked to create a character. To help those who might  not feel confident with representational art, we set up a” loose parts” provocation. We hoped it would inspire them to create their own unique character. The characters were traced and cut out and ready for the children to use them as guides . Through tracing and coloring, each child’s character came to life! 



All through this process, we asked the children to think about their characters. Who are they? Is your character kind or unkind? They were asked about how their characters showed their kindness or unkindness . Stories of kindness emerged through this character development. 



The next step for us was to paint a backdrop for all their characters. This went on for days and in those days we traveled through forests, orchards, mountains, beaches, fields of flowers, puffy clouds, shining suns , rainbows and even some dirt. 













The final representation of all this amazing art and thoughtfulness is the box you see before you. Turn the crank and watch the children’s creation come alive.




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