Celebrating Earth Week

Earth Day with our friend, Ellen

Before the Superheroes of Kindness began their first mission, when they were just becoming excited about the idea and making their first list of missions they would like to accomplish, they knew they wanted to spend some time picking up garbage around the school and making the neighborhood look nice.  And boy howdy, did the Superheroes accomplish that for Earth Day!  For this particular mission, a friend to me and Superhero enthusiast, Ellen, joined in the fun.  In honor of Earth Day, she wore her 'Mother Earth' dress.  Yeah Ellen!

Thursday morning, the children prepared for the silly task of getting dirty in order to make the neighborhood clean.  Each Superhero put on a glove, got out their eagle eyes, and scoured the grass and sidewalk for garbage of any kind.  They barely even noticed the cool wet weather.

In the end, we filled two half garbage sacks.  Considering the small size of most the garbage we found, that was quite a bit!  The children also were able to see  some of our neighbors enjoy the hard work we were putting into our earth day mission.  A couple of  neighbors came out onto their front step after we  cleaned up their front yard, and of course they couldn'thelp but smile and thank the children.  Way to go!

Friday morning the Superheroes set out on a special Earth Day mission.  Some very kind friends to this clan of good-doers have been working very hard to make capes, lots of capes.  The goal has been for an entire classroom to go on a misson together.  (For those who don't know the school, a classroom consists of two groups of children.)  Thanks to their hard work, both classes from 'the green room' were able to join together  for the first time!  With great excitement, all of the children don their capes (those new to the Superhero fun wore great big smiles).  The children made recycled flowers, either decorate pieces of from egg cartons or cutting beautiful calendar scenery into bright new flowers.  As children made their earth day flowers, they attached a note on which were statements from the children on how to help take care of the earth.  In one big clan, the 15 children leaped down to Le Petit, where we left our bouquet of flowers for their customers to enjoy (and hopefully read our suggestions on how to help take care of our earth).  Mission accomplished!

Our Ideas to Help Care for the Earth

by the Green Room Friends

     1. Plant new flowers

     2. More water (for the earth).  Make our earth

         stronger.

     3. Not throw garbage on the ground.

     4. Water plants.

     5. Sweep garbage.

     6. Put garbage in garbage cans instead of the

         ground.

     7. Make more beautiful stuff on earth day.  Reuse things!

     8. Take (only) a little bit of water from the earth.

  

  

It may have been a while since the superheroes have updated their blog, but boy howdy, have they been continuing their missions of kindness.  Here is a recap of two of their missions:

Senior Citizen's Center Surprise

The children worked to make more vibrant, handmade flowers to take to the senior citizen's center.  The superheroes had visited here before in December, bringing cookies to the lunch attendees.  This time, we were working to brighten what had been a very grey month.  Upon doning their capes, the superheroes flew the two blocks to the center.  It was a really neat experience revisiting the center.  The children remembered how happy they had made these friends.  As they remembered how excited the seniors were the last time they came, the children became more and more excited.  One girl teared up, saying she was so happy and her "heart felt so warm" that she "needed to let some tears out."  We had quite a few flowers to hand out (nearly thirty).  As each flower was handed out, the children became more excited and grew bigger smiles on themselves and their new friends.  One man received two flowers, asking if he needed to return one so that someone else may get it.  When told he could keep both, he grinned from ear to ear saying he felt very extra special.  Not only were the children asked back, but were given an open invitation to return whenever they please.  It appeared the children may have not only brightened the senior's days, but maybe even their week.  Way to go Superheroes!

To see a video of the Superheroes of Kindness in action during this field trip, click the link:

Superheroes in action

Mission: Landscaping

The children spent an hour one Friday morning helping to prepare the landscaping of a neighborhood ice cream shop for new spring growth.  The Big Dipper is frequented by Missoula Community School families, and the children thought they would be showing kindness by making the scenery which the ice cream eaters enjoy attractive.  Although the weather was a bit gloomy, the spirits were high.  Many different aspects of prepping growth for spring were experienced: long grasses were cut, leaves picked up, garbage collected, woodchips and cement raked and broomed, and of course, the observation of and replacement of a little spider whose current home we had removed.  

It was very exciting to pick up handfuls of grasses that were taller than we were.  And it definitely was extremely thrilling to receive a scoop of ice cream as a thank you for our hard work.  It was fun watching the children turn what was originally a fun field trip into an exciting superhero mission; they were able to see the kindness in their work and joy of their finished product before we even left the school.  ("Kristal, we are showing kindness today.  We should take our capes.")  Thank you Leslie, for letting us join you for a joyful Friday morning!

Random Acts of Kindness Week
Two other classes performed acts of kindness during random acts of kindness week in February.  One group, the Crazy Loving Cows, left goodies for the custodian who works hard each night to clean our school so that we may continue to enjoy it each and every day.  The other group, the Brave Tigers, left a present for Lauren, the wonderful person from the building we rent who works with our school.  The Brave Tigers received a thank you letter from Lauren.  Way to go, fellow superheroes!

Care Package for Nancy

Today the Superheroes made a care package for Nancy, the wonderful woman who delivers our mail with a smile each and every day.  Each child worked hard decorating a flower (made from recycled egg cartons and pipe cleaners.)  A LOT of love and care went into the flower making process.

We thought it would be nice to invite Nancy to lunch one day.  The children helped write a note for our special friend, they of course provided the words and I wrote them on paper.  We decided hot cocoa and some chocolates were necessities in this care package.







After our package seemed complete, we 'wrapped' it up.  Although the children wanted to take it to her house (even after I pointed out we did not know where she lived), they settled on adding it to the school's outgoing mail.

It just so happened that we were in the hallway when Nancy arrived at school today.  The children became very excited and were thrilled to see her joyful response to their surprise.  Three of the children even ran (or shall I say 'walked very quickly') down the hall to give her a big hug.  And now, a person we have seen and had contact with, but had not taken much time to talk with, is a good friend receiving some of the city's biggest hugs.  There may have been snow outside, but the sun sure was shining in the halls of the Community School today.

(A fun side story.  As the children put on their capes today, one child approached me and said, "If I see a bad guy, I won't fight him.  I will just give him a big hug.")

A New Friend

Shortly after completing our mission to Flor Haven, the Superheroes of Kindness received this beautiful note from their Senator, Max Baucus.  Although they may not have quite realized the significance of this letter, they very much realized the excitement of receiving mail.  They really found joy in the idea that someone thought of them and took the time to write them a note.  The Superheroes quickly decided they would need to let Max know they appreciated the time he took, which is how it came to be that a cape was sewn to mail to him.  It was also decided we should make two, and send one to President Obama as well.  Here are two pictures of the newest capes of kindness, one showing the capes both outside and in, and one showing the magnificent 'K' to remind their owners to show kindness.  Thank you Casey for the generosity of time you gave to make these capes happen.  

  

Welcome!

Welcome to our Superheroes of Kindness blog!  This blog is definitely a work in progress, but we hope you find it fun and discover how easy becoming your own Superhero of Kindness can be!