Reach Every Parent / Sep 05, 2023
International Literacy Day 2023 – Mak...
What books do you read to your class during the first weeks back? Share pictures of your…
4 min read
Upcoming winter celebrations are all about coming together as families and communities, sharing, and supporting others through giving. There’s one essential quality that encompasses the holiday spirit – empathy.
Why empathy matters? Empathy boosts resilience and helps develop healthy relationships. It’s an essential aspect of social skills which will radically improve their personal and professional relationships as adults – from friendships to professional prospects.
Plant the seed this season and watch your students blossom into future role models and changemakers. Here are 3 ideas for cultivating empathy among your students.
Discover Helpful Heroes in Seasonal Literature
How about approaching the seasonal tales a little differently? When talking about their favorite books, challenge them to put themselves into different characters’ shoes. Discuss what they might be feeling or thinking as the events progress.
You can also explore these lovely children’s books which are specifically focused on empathy. When planning seasonal reading, make sure to include books about winter celebrations of students from different backgrounds, countries and religions. Learning that a class friend is celebrating a little differently is yet another doorway to cultivating empathy.
Make it Fun with Kind Games
What better way to teach empathy than through play? From this free printable empathy game to digital games you can recommend to parents, mindful play can be so much more than a pastime. When it comes to cultivating positive values, showing children that doing good can feel great and be fun means winning more than half of the battle.
Make Giving Personal with Daymaker
Although virtuous, giving to children in need can be an abstract concept for young kids. Daymaker is an online platform that provides families with a real, personal and simple way to give back. By creating a classroom page through Daymaker, you will be able to offer your students and their parents a way to donate real gifts to real children in need. They can even choose to help a child in their local area who has similar interests, making giving a very special and personal experience.
Your classroom can join the program in 3 easy steps:
1. Create your class page.
2. Get a link for parents to join (see your page settings)
3. Send a quick ClassTag announcement encouraging parents to share this tool with their kids. By supporting your students in giving together as a class, you will help them see the big impact they can have.
Kids who give become adults who give – go ahead and set up your class on Daymaker in seconds. Helping kids to be kind and develop a sound moral compass now will have a profound impact on the rest of their life, as well as the society as a whole.
ClassTag is partnering with Daymaker to present more opportunities for kids to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to giving back. Prompting more opportunities to understand and SEE the impact their actions can have by making kid-to-kid giving as tangible and simple as it can be. Moments of generosity, backed by parent-kid dialogues, are hopefully only the start of a lifelong commitment to practicing compassion for those around you.
