Book Bombing

Ok, before you avid readers think this is a post about burning books, Ray Bradbury style, let me put your mind at ease and simply say, it is not.  You're safe to continue reading.  :)

If you've been following my blog you might remember an earlier post about challenging my students to do good deeds for others.  If not, you can view it here: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Today's "good deed challenge" for my class is my FAVORITE so far; it's called Book Bombing.  Book bombing is where you leave a happy note (or happy gram if you speak elementary lingo) in a library book for someone else to find.  

I opened this challenge by telling my students to imagine reading a great book they checked out of the library and suddenly finding a little note that said "smile" or "have a good day" or had a picture on it, etc.  They got super excited.  I explained that we are going to leave little notes in school library books so that other kids could feel happy when they find them.  For my older students I simply explained that they could write as many happy little notes as they wanted to and hide them in various library books during their free time.

For my kinder and first graders I had to help them out a little more.  We took the first part of class today and each drew four small happy notes and cut them out.  I told them that they were going to be "good deed spies".  I explained that their mission was to sneak into the library, find four different books and hide the notes in them, all the while putting the books back in their places.  They were encouraged to be quiet and sneaky, so it would be a surprise when people found them.  They all agreed that surprises are the best.  As they trickled back to class, they said things like, "mission accomplished" and "mission almost compromised". 
They were SO cute and excited about leaving nice surprises for others. 

As a musician, my job is to teach music and instill a love of music in my students.  As a teacher, my job crosses many more boundaries than just these.  It is so exciting to teach kids to think of others and do nice things; it's so rewarding to see them actually get excited about doing it.

We at Irvin have "bombed the library" today.  I challenge you to randomly pass on an explosion of happiness to someone in your world today as well.  I promise that not only will it make the receiver feel good, but YOU, too, will feel the effects of a random act of kindness!

PS- To our school librarian, T-Kay:

(because I know you will be reading this)

 Sorry I'm not sorry.  ;)

Examples of kindergarten happy grams for "book bombing".