Month of Love – Week 2 – LOVE OTHERS!

Welcome to Week 2 of my Month of Love posts! This week we are focusing on Love for OTHERS. This lesson is the perfect “lead up” to Valentine’s Day, with lots of anchor great anchor books to share!

Here’s the plan:

Week 1 – Love Myself
Week 2 – Love Others (friends and family)
Week 3 – Love the Land

NOTE: February begins and ends mid-week and is a short month with LOTS going on – Professional Development Days, Black History Month, Family Day, Pink Shirt Day, not to mention Valentine’s celebrations. So, I chose three weeks of Love, rather than four, as you will likely be busy!

Each week, I will post

A lesson idea based on a Month of Love theme
A list of anchor books connected to the theme of the week
A reproducible template (they can be combined to create a “Month of Love” booklet)

In case you missed my first post, LOVE MYSELF, you can check it out HERE

Thank you to Kristina Anne Marie, grade 2 teacher from SD 36 Surrey, who shared her lesson and student samples with me, inspired by my blog! She followed the lesson and created this amazing template! Her students LOVED putting heartprints on their own hearts! Kristina has generously shared the template with all of us! You can download it HERE. Thanks, Kristina!

Let’s Get Started!

Month of Love – Week 2 – LOVE OTHERS

Remind students that you are celebrating a Month of Love this month by leaving heartprints! A heartprint is something you leave behind for someone. Last week, we left heartprints for ourselves – this week we are going to leave heartprints on OTHERS!

Ask students who “OTHERS” might be (friends, family members, school staff, neighbours, coaches)

Brainstorm possible “heartprints” you might leave. Explain that they can be as simple as smiling at someone, opening a door for someone, sharing your snack with someone, saying something kind to someone, leaving a kindness note on someone’s desk, inviting someone to play with you. A heartprint doesn’t have to be big; small actions can leave BIG heartprints!

Read one (or more) of the suggested anchor books below. Discuss how the person (people) in the story left their heartprints. Discuss how leaving heartprints behind for someone makes that someone feel good, but it also makes YOU feel good, too!

Pass out Month of Love Week Two template. Download HERE (If you are familiar with my book Powerful Understanding, you will recognize this!)

Explain that we are all going to try to leave our heartprints on others this week. Since Valentine’s Day is coming up – leaving heartprints could be something your class could do for others during the week of Valentine’s.

Invite students to talk to a partner about their heartprint ideas and who they might want to leave the hearprint for. Have the students fill in their papers and commit to leaving TWO heartprints behind for TWO different people.

Here are TWO different options for leaving hearprints. Or feel free to make your own! Download HERE and HERE! (The idea of these heartprints is that they are anonymous – so remind students NOT to put their name on them!)