Updated on Wednesday, February 12, 2025
(Originally Posted on Monday, February 13, 2023)
Tis the time of year for love and hearts
so today we're bringing a special post to you
that celebrates the season1
Valentine’s Day celebrates love and caring,
so what better time is there than now to teach our Littles about kindness!
While this activity works especially well during this time of year,
please know that It’s a message that can be shared with Littles ANY time!
Today, Laura recalls a powerful message
she’d share with her kindergarten class each year!
Then, as a Grand, she’ll offer ways to share this story with your own Littles!
Before I begin, I need to pause for a moment
and share these photos from a a few years back!
That day was filled with cuddles from this smiley valentine!
Such a sweet memory!
While we won’t be together on Valentine’s Day, I won’t have to wait too long!
Thankfully, more snuggles with Little L are coming soon!
Each September, when a new school year began, one of the first lessons I would teach to my kindergartners was a story I would tell, loosely based on a folktale from long ago.. When telling my version of the story, A Wrinkled Heart, I typically personalized it each year, using our class and surroundings while doing so. I had a prop - a large red paper heart that I used as I told this story. The gist of A Wrinkled Heart was that it followed one student throughout his/her day and every time someone in the story said something hurtful to the child - “your coat is ugly” or “that idea is stupid” or “your sandwich looks gross” - I’d crumple up a small part of the paper heart.. The kindergartners would gasp with each crumple and as I continued to tell the story the red paper heart eventually became a squashed ball of red!
At this point, as a class, we’d talk about the crumpled heart and how the child in the story must have been feeling at this point. We shared times in our lives when we might have felt the same way and then we’d brainstorm ways to make that child feel better! With each idea shared - “I love your smile” or “good answer” or “your lunch looks yummy” I’d uncrumple the heart until it was fairly smoothed out. The kindergartners quickly noticed though, that while the heart now looked like a heart, it was still wrinkled! A discussion followed that, while we had tried our best to make the child in the story feel better with our kind words, we’d never be able to fix it completely… the wrinkles would always be there! Story time ended with us deciding that we’d always do our best to never wrinkle someone else’s heart!! Each child glued a small heart onto the big wrinkled one and we'd post that heart in our classroom, referring to it often throughout the year! It really helped set the tone for our year together and the expectation that kindness counts!
While I knew that many teachers also shared a similar story with their students, it wasn’t until recently that I discovered that this folktale had been adapted and published!
In Tracy Hoexter’s book, A Wrinkled Heart, a young bunny named Elliott wakes up and is excited to start a new day! At breakfast, he spills his milk and he gets scolded. Soon, Elliot’s heart starts to wrinkle. When he gets to school, his classmates say unkind things, and his heart wrinkles a bit more. Later, his friends and family apologize for their hurtful words and try to take the wrinkles out. While Elliott feels better, a few wrinkles remain. Elliot learns to always be careful with his words so he doesn't wrinkle anyone else’s heart!
The book, A Wrinkled Heart, appears to currently be available only as an e-book, through Amazon (Kindle) or Itunes (iPad). It’s an engaging read-along, with fun narration and sound effects and cheerful background music! The last page shares “Simple Ways to be Kind to Others” and there is an activity for cutting out a paper heart to wrinkle as the story is being told. (That certainly sounds familiar, doesn’t it?!)
If you’d rather not invest in the book, but would still like to listen to the story with your Littles, I did find a delightful Youtube version, as well, read by the author, Tracy Hoexter herself! It’s a great option for sharing this story and it even includes the “Simple Ways to be Kind to Others” page. (Tap on the graphic to watch!)
Of course, I’m already thinking of ways to introduce this story
to Little L now that she’s a bit older
and ways we can reinforce its message over and over again!!
Here’s what I’m thinking to get us started…
#1 - Together, we might listen to the story with no stops and no interruptions!
#2 - We can retell the story in our own words, and using our own red paper heart, we’ll crumple it up every time Elliot’s heart is wrinkled in the story and we’ll try to smooth out the wrinkles every time an apology or kind word is said.
#3 - When the story is done, we will read through the ideas on the last page of the e-book. In the middle of our paper heart we will write the words, Be kind… don’t wrinkle anyone’s heart.” Then, as a fun addition, we will add band-aids around the words on the heart, and write our ideas for a kind word or phrase on each.
#4 - We will then post the wrinkled heart in Little L’s room or on the fridge to remind her (and all of us) about this important choice we make with the words we use… after all, kindness counts!!
Here’s what I’m envisioning it to look like…
While our wrinkled heart activity is a meaningful introduction to choosing kindness, we would never presume that this one experience, or even a few would have a lasting impact on our Littles! Rather, they will need repeated opportunities - at home, at school and in their communities to see kindness in action! We will look forward to one day sharing more kindness centered ideas with you and we welcome your thoughts and suggestions, too!
Using teachable moments such as these
- to share kindness with our Littles and its impact on our world -
could be one of the greatest gifts we, as Grands, can offer them!
If you are still looking for some last minute activities to do with your Littles to celebrate Valentine’s Day, be sure to check out our two recent posts, Will You Be My Valentine? and A Red & White Valentine Dinner! You may find something there!
We’d love to see you back here when we post once again!
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See you next time!
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Oh, now you make me really miss teaching! It's those beautiful moments when you know you've touched a child's heart (no pun intended) that help to make teaching such a wonderful vocation! Thank you for sharing this post with me!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
Stopping by again with congratulations! This post was the Host's Choice from Will Blog for Comments #25! It will be in the spotlight all next week, starting today. You are welcome to copy the "This Post Was a Featured Favorite" image from there and share it with your readers here, if you like. Hope to see you again next week at #26--it opens Monday morning. Have a great weekend! ~Jennifer
What a wonderful lesson indeed. Kindness goes a long long way.
I appreciate you sharing this lesson with Sweet Tea & Friends this month dear friend.
Yes Kindness does matter and every chance we get to show others kindness we should. Thanks so much for sharing all of your ideas come see what we shared at http;//shopannies.blogspot.com
I love this idea and the message it teaches. How neat there's a "wrinkled heart" book, too! This is such important behavior to model, as you mentioned with inclusive language, etc. Thanks for sharing this post at the Will Blog for Comments #25 linkup. :) ~Jennifer