School diaries: The tree of love

I have been through a tough week after catching whatever bug Little Man had and I have been suffering from a runny nose, a very sore throat that ended in me being unable to speak and coughing so hard my head is about to explode! Luckily, today I 'm feeling a little better, the sore throat seems to be gone, my voice is gradually coming back and the cough, although bad, is not as awful as during the weekend. I hope that by the end of the week I'll be back to my old self again.

Anyway, after a short hiatus due to my poor health, I am back to share a project we worked on with the teacher of the fourth grade. Since March 6th is our "national" day against bullying in schools, she wanted to discuss bullying with her students and make a few posters to hang on the walls of our school lobby. I get to teach Art in her class and we decided to work together on it like we've done with so many other projects in the past. After she had had a discussion with the kids about the issue, it was my hour of Art. I showed a few ideas to the kids and they voted to make the tree of love!

I gave them two hearts each, a small and a bigger one, and told them to color them however they wanted.

The next step was to brainstorm positive messages to write on the big ones and positive words for the smaller ones. Then, the kids wrote down those messages and we glued their hearts on our tree. It was quite hard for me, as I was unable to speak loud last Friday (if not speak at all), but I tried to write down all the instructions on the board and the kids seemed to understand the difficult position I was in and cooperated great together. The truth is, the fourth graders of our school are really nice children that rarely cause any troubles and I enjoy the lessons with them.

Our Tree of Love now decorates the stairs that lead from the lobby to the first floor.

Some of the messages:

"Δεν κοροϊδεύω, σέβομαι."
"I don't call names, I show respect."

"Δεν τρομάζω, αγκαλιάζω."
"I don't scare others, I hug them."

"Με τα χέρια μου χτίζω φιλιά, δεν μοιράζω ποτέ βία."
"With my hands I build friendships and don't share violence."

"Μαθαίνω να αγαπώ και όχι να χτυπώ."
"I learn how to love and not how to kick."

If you liked this one, wait to see my caterpillar multiplication project with the second graders today!!

^{Original content by @ruth-girl - All images taken by @ruth-girl with smartphone Moto G22 - All rights reserved}