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This year National CHARACTER COUNTS! Week will be celebrated by nearly 8 million kids in 52 countries.
There will be parades, themed dress days, T-shirt design contests, writing contests, classroom-door decorating contests, all kinds of parental involvement, CC! assemblies, Role Models of the Day, Pillars of the Day, art projects, class mentoring, surprise guests, and several versions of Celebration Friday.
In Albertville, Alabama, the students at Albertville Primary School will “Stay on Track with Good Character” as they walk and run laps on the track during P.E. class. For each lap they complete, students will get a colored bead representing one of the Six Pillars of Character.
In Cave Creek, Arizona, students at Horseshoe Elementary will demonstrate trustworthiness, caring, responsibility, and citizenship as they work together to groom horses.
In Queen Creek, Arizona, the Leading Edge Academy is having a Lee National Denim Day to raise money to help fight women’s cancers. They’re also practicing good citizenship by hosting a Food Drive for the United Food Bank.
In Atlanta, Georgia, the Warren/Holyfield Boys and Girls Club will practice caring and good citizenship by visiting a neighborhood nursing home to adopt grandparents and play games.
In Iowa, the whole city of Fort Dodge is participating in a Pay It Forward program. Based on Catherine Ryan Hyde’s book about a boy’s attempt to improve the world by paying a favor forward, the Trinity Regional Medical Center is challenging everyone in town to pay it forward.
If you haven’t done so already, register now to get great ideas from the CC! National Office, like Daily Character Ideas, which offers a good deed for kids to do every day of the week.
What are you doing for CC! Week?
Add a comment below and share your great ideas!
You can also email us your CC! Week pictures at ccnews@jiethics.org. (And please tell us as much as you can about what’s going on in the pictures!)
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In Hampton, IA we have a daily advisory program where we devote 2 of those days to Character Counts. We started a big buddy/ little buddy program where we have positive role models from the high school spend time with a middle school student who may need the extra attention. They do anything from homework to playing games to attending ball games or music events together. OUr students have also participated in many community service activities, are having a coat drive and have generated many food drives. On CC week, we take the opportunity to thank our support staff here at the high school and have an open house in their honor. We make a video about Character Counts and what the program is all about and serve cookies, coffee etc. These are just a few of the main things we do for Character Counts!
Without an emotionally safe school environment students will not flourish. Let’s get back to teaching the whole child; physical, emotional, and intellectual. When kids feel accepted, respected, and loved, they will show greater academic achievement! Going backwards is a travesty! Focus only on testing is a detriment to kids and research proves that!
Goleta, CA ~ Ellwood School student body and staff will join the celebration by dressing in a specially designated pillar color each day of the week! Two banners were created by 6th Graders and will be displayed on campus. We’ve invited a few special guest speakers — nearby SB County Fire Station 11 will visit students and will share how their character pillars come into play as a team member of a stellar fire crew and when they go out into the public to share educational information on fire safety. Superintendents and Administrators will visit classrooms at Ellwood to share personal stories from their own elementary school days on how they turned a ‘wrong’ into a ‘right’. They’ll also read short stories with character pillar themes. Students will have the opportunity to participate in Character Pillar Art and Essay contests, with winners being announced on Pillar Friday. Each day in the office, “Character Counts!” logo pillar colored balloons will fly high! To kick off all of these wonderful events, on our Monday Morning Telecast, Principal, Liz Barnitz, will proclaim “National Character Counts Week 2010″ and several students from Ms. Robles’ 3rd Grade class will sing from CC!’s instrumental CD, “Making Choices”. We wish everyone a very special week.
I wrote about Character Counts! Week at Raising Figure Skaters (http://raisingfigureskaters.com/2010/10/15/its-character-counts-week-october-17-23/ and http://raisingfigureskaters.com/2010/10/22/make-a-difference-from-home/). Because of the ideas from Character Counts! Week, I started participating in It Starts With Us and Let’s Drop A Love Bomb.
Check out http://www.kare11.com and search for “Young Runner gives up his chances…” and watch the video of a young man from the Orono Schools in Minnesota. He has been working towards his cross country goal of getting to the state meet and saw another runner fall. He stopped and helped him up, motivated him to keep going, and they finished the race together…losing his possible chance to go to state. Now that is showing character!
Our school celebrated “Character Counts” Week for the first time. On different days each pillar was recognized and students were encouraged to do small things that mattered (caring–helping younger siblings with homework; responsibility–picking up litter on school grounds). The heightened awareness of respect for each other led to very productive workdays and the day held a spirit of camraderie among the student body.
Wally Hufford of Nikiski North Star Elementary in Nikiski, Alaska writes:
Our theme was: “Cowboys for Character!”
We kicked off the week with our annual school-wide assembly complete with a pony and local cowboys. The Queen of Character (our principal Lisa Callahan) presided over the ceremony which was led by CHARACTER COUNTS! Ambassadors Linda Zimmerman and me. The cowboys cracked the whip and roped a saw-horse steer while reading the Cowboy Creed. As is tradition, the sixth grade class led the entire school in the Six Pillar Shuffle at the end of the assembly.
During the remainder of the week we celebrated two pillars each day, conducted an essay photo/picture contest, and had CHARACTER COUNTS! Transfer day (every student and staff member wore a CHARACTER COUNTS! Transfer).
A great time was had by all and here at Nikiski North Star Elementary we know our CHARACTER COUNTS!
Sincerely,
Wally Hufford
In an ongoing effort to celebrate good character, our school recognized Character Counts! Week for the first time. Each day represented one of the six pillars of character and students and staff wore a different color depending on which character trait was being celebrated. Teachers implemented various activities within their classrooms to reinforce the importance of a different character trait each day. Students also participated in a poster contest where they designed a poster depicting one or all of the six pillars of character, which would be judged by our principal. Building good character is something we value and will hope our students can learn at both home and school.
Port Charlotte, FL ~ At Edison Collegiate High School, we had special events for each day of the week.
Monday: Students wore blue for Trustworthiness. Blue snow- cones were given out at lunch. A mural of the 6 pillars, made by the Art Club was displayed in the cafe.
Tuesday: Students wore yellow for Respect. At lunch students sat with people they wouldnt normally sit with. We put ballons for the 6 pillar colors in the cafe.
Wednesday: Students wore green for Responsibility. Students had to write an essay for their English 2 class. Winners were announced.
Thursday: Students wore orange for Fairness. The drama club travelled from class to class performing skits about each pillar. Students were given popcorn at lunch in colored bags representing each pillar.
Friday: Students wore red and purple for Caring/Citizenship. The winner of the 1st period class who was most compliant in wearing the colors this week were announced and they get a doughnut party next week. October’s character counts avard for Respect was announced. The news of the school wide charity fundraiser – Habitat for Humanity was announced. There was a guest speaker from Habitat for Humanity.