Recently, I enjoyed reading two of my books and making projects from some of the activities in the backs of the books with a classroom of first grade children. We made hummingbird feeders out of recycled coffee cups, always a hit with the kids, one day and then cooked Colombian pancakes (arepas) on another day (I have already posted about both of these activities in other blogs so I won't do it here).
What I want to comment on in this blog is the sweet thoughtfulness of the children that I read to and worked with as they each wrote a thank you letter and sent them to me in a little scrapbook. I loved the way the children expressed their thoughts and have chosen three of the letters as darling examples. The children were very polite and seemed very interested as they made comments and asked questions during the stories and then enthusiastically got into the projects. One little boy told me that he ate ten arepas pancakes - I think that he enjoyed them!
I really appreciated the children for taking time in their class to write these thank you notes and I thank their teacher for encouraging them to do it. Their expressions of thank you really meant a lot to me.
It seems that today we are losing a little bit of our civility and kindness toward one another. Saying "Please" and "thank you" was something that my parents told me was very important and saying it with a smile made it even more meaningful. It seems to be lost today in many parts of our society.
I have traveled the world and nothing means more in any culture than a welcome smile and an attempt to say "please" and "thank you" in the home country language. We must teach our children the importance of "please" and "thank you". It shows respect and makes both the giver and the receiver feel good. It leads to other gestures of kindness and it is so important and much needed in our world today.
What I want to comment on in this blog is the sweet thoughtfulness of the children that I read to and worked with as they each wrote a thank you letter and sent them to me in a little scrapbook. I loved the way the children expressed their thoughts and have chosen three of the letters as darling examples. The children were very polite and seemed very interested as they made comments and asked questions during the stories and then enthusiastically got into the projects. One little boy told me that he ate ten arepas pancakes - I think that he enjoyed them!
I really appreciated the children for taking time in their class to write these thank you notes and I thank their teacher for encouraging them to do it. Their expressions of thank you really meant a lot to me.
It seems that today we are losing a little bit of our civility and kindness toward one another. Saying "Please" and "thank you" was something that my parents told me was very important and saying it with a smile made it even more meaningful. It seems to be lost today in many parts of our society.
I have traveled the world and nothing means more in any culture than a welcome smile and an attempt to say "please" and "thank you" in the home country language. We must teach our children the importance of "please" and "thank you". It shows respect and makes both the giver and the receiver feel good. It leads to other gestures of kindness and it is so important and much needed in our world today.
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