We all know why kindness is so important, but how can it be taught? If you’re wondering how to teach compassion in the classroom, you’ll want to look at this lesson. Kindness lessons for middle school or upper elementary students can be woven into reading lessons with this informational passage about the science of kindness. Students will learn about the physical changes that take place in the human body when a person does something kind and helpful for another person. After reading the passage and practicing comprehension skills, Extension Activities give students opportunities to explore experiments in kindness by brainstorming ways to be kind to others. 
 
Teacher’s Guide
The Teacher’s Guide contains everything needed to teach the lesson, including a mini lesson for how to teach text structure. Worksheets include a graphic organizer for identifying text structures, questions for comprehension, and vocabulary practice. The guide includes a generic graphic organizer that walks students through differentiating between types of text structures used in a passage. The graphic organizer can be used with any informational passage for future lessons.
 
Extension Activities
Extension Activities give students opportunities to respond to the passage in different learning modalities to conduct a kindness challenge or write a thank-you letter.
 
Included in this Package
The 21-page PDF is ready to print 2-sided in color on regular copy paper. Copies of the student worksheets and the story can be made separately in black-and-white.
 
The guide includes the following:
Teacher’s Guide
Table of Contents
Vocabulary Worksheet
Comprehension Worksheet
Answer Keys
Text Structures Graphic Organizer
“The Science of Kindness” Informational Passage (911 words)