#positivepostitday

I found the idea for #positivepostitday on Twitter. While the day was created as a positive response to a high school girl that was being bullied, I LOVED the idea of sharing positive and deliberate compliments to people for no reason at all, except to be nice! Far too often we think positive things about others, but do not take the time or make the effort to share them. Unfortunately, we (the teachers) are the only ones that tell some of these children anything positive. On Positive Post-It Day, we (students and staff) would take the time to jot a positive compliment about someone on a post-it note and share it with them.

We kicked off our day by watching a Kid President video, "20 Things We Should Say More Often".

My 2nd Graders loved it. I did too! I pointed out the last message, "If you can't think of anything nice to say, you're not thinking hard enough." How true! As a class, we then practiced giving specific compliments to someone. For example, we didn't want to write 16 post-it notes that said, "You are awesome!". We made a list of possible compliments that included thinks like, "You are so funny!" and "You are really smart and know so much about animals."

We then went to work! I had set aside about 15-20 minutes for the kids to write post-its. After 20 minutes, there was no way they were done! They were excitedly writing and very engaged. I was thrilled with the writing practice (had to be complete sentences) as well as the thought they were putting in to each heartfelt note. They worked hard for almost an hour straight. I had to stop them to go to art class!

I took the time to write out a positive post-it for each of my students at home, so I was prepared. I also wrote a positive post-it for each teacher in our building and put it on their classroom door. Not every teacher participated, but many did.


I found this post-it on the door or my daughter's 4th grade class (written by her!). I was proud of her for being so thoughtful, but also that she felt that way about her class.

This is my door. My heart was warmed reading the nice things that students and teachers shared. It was surprising to see some from students that I had never had, but had obviously impacted by simply saying hello in the hallway or lunchroom and asking them how they were.

Overall, I believe that #positivepostitday was a huge success. I look forward to making it an annual event!