The Kindness Eggs-periment
Adapted from a lesson by Allene Byroad,
Counselor, Lovejoy ISD
And from 10-Minute Life Lessons for Kids by Jamie Miller.
Objective: Students will observe and discuss the connection between kindness and
caring with acceptance, support and encouragement for others.
Materials: clear drinking glass or vase filled with 1 cup water; 1 fresh egg;
¼ cup salt; Tablespoon; Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo, little red fuzzies
Procedures:
1. Review with students the character trait focus: CARING.
2. Have students generate a list of ways we show we care as well as how we
feel when others show they care for us. Ask them to also reflect on how
caring for others makes US feel and what it does for us.
3. Explain your goal today – to show what can happen when we shower
people with kindness and help them feel loved and accepted.
4. Carefully place the egg in the glass of water and have students make
observations - it sunk to the bottom, it’s drowning, it’s heavy, it’s
submerged. Tell students that the egg represents someone who is not
receiving kindness, love or acceptance from those around him/her.
Sinking to the bottom represents how someone in this situation feel –
low, sad, depressed, unappreciated, overwhelmed, struggling, drowning.
5. Remove the egg from the water and set it aside. Ask students what the
egg might need to feel loved, cared about, accepted, supported, and
encouraged. As they answer, add the salt to the water on Tablespoon at a
time. If students run out of ideas, use examples that are relevant to
students’ lives, such as offering to eat lunch with a new student, bringing
cookies to a new family in the neighborhood, helping someone who has
fallen or dropped papers, asking someone to work in his/her group. After
all the salt is added, replace the egg to show how it is now supported with
“love” and “held up” by the encouragement and acceptance of others.
(You may need to add more salt.) Introduce the phrase “a pinch of
salt…a pinch of kindness.”
6. Tell students you want to share a beautiful story of a young girl who used
a pinch of kindness to show acceptance and kindness to someone who
had very little. Her pinch of kindness helped brighten the winter holiday.
7. Read Great Joy by Kate DiCamillo. Focus on the kindness and caring of
the little girl. Throughout the story, remind students of the connection
between her “pinches of salt” and her kind words and deeds. Out of
sensitivity to religious affiliations, you may want to omit the word
“church” and “sanctuary” and used “building” instead.
8. As a follow-up, give each student a little red fuzzy pompon and challenge
them to pay it forward by looking for someone who could use a pinch of
kindness and passing along the warm fuzzy with an affirmation, a
compliment, a smile, or a kind deed.