**Random Acts of Kindness in Miss Hane's 3's: Great article in Parenting Dec/ Jan 2007 issue on 'How to Teach Kindness- Raising A Compassionate child'= http://www.parenting.com/parenting/child/article/0,19840,1560243,00.html? topic=l1366 It is said in early childhood developmental studies that three year olds are 'egocentric', meaning that they are not able to see past themselves and not yet able to regard others in their world as being important figures. Thus at Novemeber conferences, I find myself instructing parents on the one area that three year olds struggle most in is sharing and taking turns. Well, not in our class! We have broken the mold! Our students have created a contagious feeling of kindness through their daily deeds towards their peers and teachers. It is heard very often in our class 'Wow, that was so wonderful of you to share the puzzle with your friend, go give yourselve a HEART!'. This is because we have instilled in our students from the first day of school that if they want to earn a sticker at the end of the session and a heart in their communication book, they have to do something nice for a friend or a teacher without someone asking them to do it or it already being their 'daily job'. The children are now able to independantly do for others, report to a teacher they did it and give themselves a 'pink heart' on our classroom behavior chart. This is simply amazing! Moreover, parents are thrilled to see that their child earned 'a PURPLE heart' to replace the pink heart on the bulletan board for doing MULTIPLE good deeds in one session! This helps me out immensely when indicating each childs behavior in their notebooks!The newest step that was introduced in January 2007 was to sit with each individual child and have them give themselves the heart sticker in their communication book to tell their parents how they earned it! I want to personally thank our paraprofessional, Mr Jim, Miss Gabby (our Music Teacher), Nurse Pat, all therapists and parents who have helped me 'catch them being good' in and out of the classroom!