October 31 Days of Kindness @TonkaSchools #TonkaStrong #KindnessInChalk #WeAreOne

This October, Minnetonka Public Schools is focusing on kindness. October is National Cyber Safety Month and National Bully Prevention Month, and as a way to encompass activities around these themes, we are encouraging our students, staff, and community to take part in 31 days of kindness. Everyone should treat one another respectfully and with kindness whether in person or through technology. The lines between our face-to-face interactions and those that occur through technology are increasingly blurred, and often our interactions with others in one arena spill over into the other. Spotlighting kindness is a great way to draw attention and improve our interactions with one another no matter how they occur.

On Friday, October 9, we are taking part in Kindness in Chalk, which is an event started by a Minnesota mom and blogger. Students in Minnetonka Preschool through High School will write positive and encouraging messages in chalk on sidewalks outside of their schools as well as in the community. We will be Tweeting and posting these on our Facebook pages. In addition to this day, there will also be video public service announcements that students are putting together, additional messages encouraging kindness, anti-bullying, and cyber safety Tweeted, posted on our schools' Facebook sites, as well as sent home in school email newsletters. We will include connections in our messaging to using technology with kindness, anti-cyberbullying, encouraging positive use of technology for social media, posting things that inspire, and build empathy. Later this month we will host a webinar for parents with a local pediatrician and child psychologist about helping kids use technology in a healthy and balanced way. 

You can follow, encourage, reTweet, and spread these messages by following these hashtags: #TonkaStrong, #KindnessInChalk, #WeAreOne, and @TonkaSchools. If your school is participating in Kindness in Chalk, National Bully Prevention Month, or National Cyber Safety Month, please let me know. I’d love to hear about activities from other places.

Read more about Minnetonka’s 31 Days of Kindness on the High School Newspaper Site.