Connections Academy Online Clubs: Kindness Club
by Valerie Kirk
4 min to read
Much like a child learns their letters and numbers, children can learn positive character traits such as responsibility and kindness.
To help nurture kindness, Connections Academy students in pre-K – fifth grade can participate in the extracurricular virtual Kindness Club.
What Is a Kindness Club?
The Kindness Club is where students come together to explore how – and why – to spread kindness in their daily lives. The club meets once a month in a LiveLesson virtual classroom. Each session has a kindness theme. The live sessions are recorded for club members who can’t attend.
Led by the club advisor, students talk about what the theme means to them, and they complete different activities. They also brainstorm ideas on how to spread kindness following the theme.
Kindness Club themes include:
Gratitude
Self-awareness
Forgiveness
Acceptance
Generosity
Empathy
Patience
Stewardship
At the end of each session, students earn digital tokens for each theme. It becomes a game for them to collect all of the tokens.
“Kindness Club is one hour of pure joy and positivity,” said Erika Dragoo, Connections Academy’s Student Clubs & Activities Analyst. “I’m blown away by the ideas they come up with to spread kindness.”
What Is the Purpose of Kindness Club?
Schools across the country are embracing clubs and activities like The Great Kindness Challenge that help students develop traits like kindness. The Connections Academy Kindness Cub helps students think about ways to be kind and helps them understand the impact they can have by showing kindness to others.
“We talk a lot about how spreading kindness doesn’t have to be a grand act or expensive,” said Dragoo. “Even little acts of kindness, like doing something nice for your neighbor or helping your mom with a chore can make a difference. When you show someone kindness, they will often pay it forward. One kind act can have a ripple effect that ultimately makes entire communities kinder places.”
Spreading kindness also supports the student’s overall well-being. Being kind to others increases self-esteem, reduces depression, stress, and anxiety, and can decrease blood pressure.
“Being kind includes being kind to yourself,” said Dragoo. “Students learn that they can’t be their best selves and be kind to others unless they are also kind to themselves, which is a life lesson that will help them as adults when life’s stressors become more significant.”
Each club ends with deep breathing and meditation exercises. It helps the students practice self-awareness and reminds them that they have to take care of themselves before they can take care of others.
Why do Students Join Kindness Club?
Extracurricular clubs are a great way for Connections Academy students to build social skills, connect with others, and make friends.
Every student has a different background. Some may have been bullied, some may have trouble regulating their emotions, and some may need additional social opportunities. Students join the Kindness Club for a variety of reasons, but often their parent or caregiver wants to help them learn how to be kind. Kindness Club helps them focus on what it means to be kind to others.
Kindness Club Ideas
During the club sessions, students share things they have done to be kind, which helps inspire other club members.
“Students love to share ideas on how to be kind on the Kindness Club message board,” said Dragoo. “They also send me WebMail messages of the things they did throughout the month.”
“One of our fourth-grade club members made a two-minute video of himself volunteering at a food pantry. He talked about food insecurity and people in need. He also shared ways that club members could get involved. It was really powerful.”
Benefits That Extend Beyond the Kindness Club
Participating in online clubs like the Kindness Club gives students the opportunity to interact with people of all backgrounds and engage with others in meaningful ways, building their social skills and getting them involved with their community. Online clubs also help students learn the soft skills they will need to find success later in life, including leadership, creative thinking, and problem solving.
“Kindness Club is helping students build spreading kindness into their daily lives. Through kind acts, these kids have the power to make the world a kinder place,” said Dragoo.
How to Join an Online School Club
Connections Academy offers hundreds of extracurricular online clubs on topics as diverse as esports , debate, chess, and the Kindness Club. Participation is voluntary – there are no grades! – and joining is easy. Caretakers and Learning Coaches simply need to sign their students up for the club, and the student will be added to the club message board and invited to the live online meetings.
For students who may be hesitant or uncertain about joining an online extracurricular club, just try it! They can attend a LiveLesson session to see what it’s all about and review the club activities before committing to join. They can be as active as they would like to be. Even students who are hesitant at first find online clubs to be safe and supportive places.
Online clubs help form the Connections Academy school community. All students are welcome!
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