Connections

The grand finale of Kindness Week was for each homeroom to collaborate and create a poster that expressed why kindness matters. "The most creative gets a prize," I informed my group, "so let's think about it."

We brainstormed, tossing ideas back and forth, but nothing really captured our attention. "Let's do Connections," suggested a student after a while.

"No!" I said, thinking he meant the NY Times word game we enjoy playing together. "We can't play a game until we have an idea!" Then I turned my head. "Or did you mean let's do Connections for our poster theme?"

He nodded. 

"I think that's genius!" I proclaimed, and the rest of the kids agreed with me. 

So the next day we came up with a list of words associated with kindness and looked for commonalities. We were all crowded around the whiteboard writing, erasing, circling, making suggestions and tweaks until at last we had sixteen words that could be sorted into four not-too-obvious categories. "This is the most fun I've ever had at school," one student said quite sincerely. "It's way better than game day!"

Another student did a little online research and discovered a website that allows you to create your own Connections game, based on the NY Times model. She plugged our words and categories into it, and we created a QR Code to go along with the poster.

"I'm sure we're going to win!" another kid crowed.

"Maybe," I said. "I guess it depends on whether the judges know the game."

"I don't care if we win," said someone else. "This was a good bonding experience for us."

I'd have to agree.

See for yourself: