Children are remarkable: they speak what they mean, listen with an open heart, and are capable of achieving so much more than what we think they can. They have the loudest voices, the brightest smiles and the most accepting of hearts, and as such, have the greatest capacity for kindness.
The covid-19 pandemic has affected the world in various ways, some more severely than others, but our children have been surprisingly resilient, adaptable, and accepting towards these changes. Moreover, despite the inconveniences they face in their daily lives, they possess the strength and same unwavering enthusiasm to learn, grow and show support to the community through their efforts of care, appreciation, and love.
For this project, the children learned about essential workers: who they are, what they do, and the important role they play during the pandemic. In an open classroom discussion with the teachers, the children talked about delivery men, doctors, nurses, firefighters, and police officers. For each one, they shared their experiences and impressions of these essential workers and acknowledge the sacrifices they made while fulfilling these roles and responsibilities.
The children also learned about the great lengths doctors and nurses had to go through to help attend and cure the sick; the bravery and dedication of firefighters and police officers, who still went out and continued to serve the community during the pandemic; and the hard work and long hours faced by delivery men and women, who tirelessly delivered food to their doorstep when all the eateries and restaurants were closed.
A few favourites began to surface, as the children leaned towards different essential workers, which inspired them to come up with different ways they could show these everyday heroes, appreciation.
The children listed various ideas: baking cookies and cakes, making thank-you cards, filming thank-you video messages, giving flowers, and even packing and delivering fruit baskets. In the end, the entire class chose to make simple thank-you cards for the essential workers, so they could proudly display it at the windows for their heroes to see.
Finally, the children decided on three heartfelt messages they wanted to include in their thank-you cards. These messages are:
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Thank you for being strong.
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Thank you for helping us.
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Thank you for saving lives.
Each child then selected the message that resonated with them the most.
During the card-making process, the children were guided to make handprints on drawing paper. They selected the paint colours they wanted, covered their palms with it, and printed their hands on it in a shape of a heart.
The teachers then helped cut out these ‘hearts’ for the children to make their thank-you cards.
After selecting the coloured paper they wanted, the children pasted their hearts in the center. Then, they selected the cut-out of their favourite essential worker to paste on the heart.
Finally, they chose their favourite thank-you message and pasted it below the picture.
There was great pride and joy in the children’s eyes and smiles, as they held up their thank-you cards proudly and excitedly talked about them. They expressed their hopes and wishes that our essential workers would feel happy to see their thank-you cards and show appreciation the same way their efforts are appreciated. They also hoped that these cards would further motivate their heroes to press on during the pandemic, because they have their support.
From the bottom of our children’s hearts, we would like to say thank you for being strong, thank you for helping us, and thank you for saving lives.
