World Kindness Day PowerPoint Presentation

About this resource

What's inside this resource

World Kindness Day PowerPoint Presentation

The World Kindness Day PowerPoint Presentation is a captivating and interactive resource aimed at enhancing students from Grade 2 to Grade 9's understanding of the importance of kindness. Ideal as a teaching aid for World Kindness Day, celebrated globally every 13th of November, this presentation offers sixty-four slides exploring different facets related to kindness.

To begin with, the presentation introduces students to the origins of World Kindness Day, providing a perfect storytelling platform.
Moving forward, it shares Jonny Benjamin's story, adding an empathetic twist in your classroom climate.
Focusing on global thoughts on kindness as shared by notable philosophers like Mark Twain and Gandhi is another impressive feature. This can give birth to engaging classroom discussions about creating harmony through acts of kindness.
An additional feature that promotes active student participation revolves around discussing examples showcasing daily acts of kindness. Furthermore, there’s a hyperlink included within this learning source directing students towards an interview with Jonny Benjamin himself - thus giving them close insights into his perspective.

This practical resource can be used during whole-class sessions or smaller group settings alike. Also available as homework assignments for independent study time centered on value education. With fully editable content aligned appropriately for pupils from Grades 2 through 9; customization according to specific class needs or preferences while maintaining essential moral learnings becomes feasible. To summarize: The World Kindness Day PowerPoint Presentation aims not just at academic learning but also at nurturing pupils' character development - transforming education beyond classrooms into life lessons.

What's included

An origins sequence: kindness groups meeting on 13 November 1997 to form the World Kindness Movement, the date's annual observance, and its adoption in more than 28 countries (slides 2-5)
Profiles of the two founders of Kindness Day UK in 2010 - Louise Burfitt-Dons, who started the Cool To Be Kind anti-bullying campaign in 2001 and the charity Act Against Bullying in 2010, and David Jamilly, who founded The Good Deeds Organisation in 2005 and Kindness UK in 2011 (slides 6-8)
Three real campaign examples: 10,000 free chocolate bars at London train stations, 30,000 free gerberas from the Singapore Kindness Movement, and a mass kindness hug on Bondi Beach organised by World Kindness Australia (slides 9-11)
An extended true account of Jonny Benjamin, from his 2007 schizophrenia diagnosis and the morning of 14 January 2008 on Waterloo Bridge, through the stranger's intervention, to his campaign to find the man, his identification as Neil Laybourn, and his MBE in 2017 (slides 15-27)
A slide inviting a click on an image to hear the story in the participants' own words (slide 24)
A research sequence on the effects of kindness: oxytocin lowering blood pressure and improving heart health, serotonin calming and lifting mood, helpers feeling stronger and more energetic, and charitable givers reporting the greatest happiness (slides 29-32)
A quotations section introduced by the line that many people from all walks of life have written about the power and importance of kindness, including the anecdote of Gandhi throwing his second shoe onto the track (slides 34-44)
A closing sequence opening with the question "But what can we do?" and ending on "Every day is an opportunity to act with kindness" (slides 45-62)

Resource types: Presentations, Teacher Tools

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Give the origin and date of World Kindness Day and name the movement behind it
Describe how national kindness organisations mark the day, using the chocolate bar, gerbera and Bondi Beach examples
Explain what the presentation reports about the physical effects of kindness, naming oxytocin and serotonin and what each is said to do
Retell how one conversation on a bridge changed the course of two lives, and explain what the presentation means by the domino effect of a single act
Suggest specific acts of kindness that could be carried out on the day and beyond it

Teaching tips

Slides 15 to 27 tell a suicide-attempt story in detail - the bridge, the intent, the stranger's words - so preview that block, decide whether the class will see it, and have the school's usual support routes ready before the lesson
Slide 24 depends on an embedded click to hear the story, so test that it plays on the machine being used before the lesson rather than during it
The framing is British throughout, from Kindness Day UK and the MBE to a pupil addressing a teacher as "Miss", which is worth adjusting or explaining outside the UK
The three campaign examples give ready numbers to work with - 10,000 chocolate bars, 30,000 gerberas, one beach hug - and make a natural comparison to a class's own achievable scale
"But what can we do?" on slide 47 is the pivot from information to action, and it is the point at which the presentation stops giving facts and starts inviting them
The Gandhi shoe anecdote is short and self-contained, which makes it a usable starter on its own if the full presentation is too long for one lesson

Skills covered

Understanding an awareness day - students learn where World Kindness Day came from, when it falls, and which organisations mark it.
Reading real-world examples - three national campaigns are given with their own figures, from 10,000 chocolate bars in London to 30,000 gerberas in Singapore.
Following a true narrative - Jonny Benjamin's story runs across thirteen slides from diagnosis through the bridge to an MBE, and the presentation draws an explicit conclusion from it about consequence.
Connecting behaviour to biology - the research slides name oxytocin and serotonin and state what each is said to do to blood pressure, mood and energy.
Moving from information to action - the closing sequence turns the material into the question of what a class can actually do.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What does the presentation say about the science of kindness?

It cites research on two chemicals. Oxytocin, released when people perform acts of kindness, is described as lowering blood pressure, improving heart health and increasing self-esteem and optimism. Serotonin is described as healing wounds, calming you down and making you feel happy. Two further slides add that people who helped others felt stronger and more energetic afterwards, and that people who give to charity report the greatest happiness overall.

Whose story runs through the middle of the presentation?

Jonny Benjamin's. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2007 at the age of twenty, he left hospital on 14 January 2008 and went to Waterloo Bridge intending to end his life. A stranger stopped, offered to buy him a coffee and told him he could get better, and Jonny moved back from the edge. Six years later he used social media to find the man, Neil Laybourn, and in 2017 he received an MBE for services to mental health and suicide prevention. This section deals with suicide directly and is worth previewing before it is shown.

Where is the presentation's frame of reference?

Mostly the United Kingdom. Kindness Day UK and its two founders, the MBE, the London train station giveaway and a pupil saying "Miss, I really enjoyed the lesson" all point there. The examples do reach further - Singapore and Australia both appear - and the World Kindness Movement itself is described as active in more than 28 countries.