How to Spread Kindness with Warm Fuzzies

I remember my elementary school counselor coming into my classroom and teaching us about warm fuzzies and cold pricklies. The culminating activity included colorful pom poms and wiggle eyes to glue on them so we could make our very own warm fuzzies to remind us about being kind to others.

Rarely do I hear anyone mention warm fuzzies. So, when I saw a comment on one of my recent Facebook posts about my fellow counselors’ favorite lessons, I couldn’t help but reach out to my guest blogger today and ask her to share her favorite warm fuzzy lesson with you all. Welcome, Brittany!

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Hello! My name is Brittany Jeffries, and I have been a school counselor for 15 years. We all have a favorite lesson we have done with students. I have been fortunate enough to do mine every year, and the students and staff get just as excited as they did the very first time. Today I am going to share my favorite lesson with you……Warm Fuzzies! 

Typically I do Warm Fuzzies with the students starting the first week of February in conjunction with National School Counseling Week. What more of a perfect week to promote pure kindness? Approximately a week before my student lessons, I send an email to all staff letting them know that the Warm Fuzzies are about to begin! Within my email I let the staff know that I will be using the book The Original Warm Fuzzy Tale written by Claude Steiner. I also use the Urban Dictionary definition of Warm Fuzzy. One thing I always stress is Warm Fuzzies are freely given; never earned or purchased. The staff is also given the opportunity to request a bulk number of cards if they want to send them to their students. At this time I also put a box of blank Warm Fuzzy cards and pencils in the mailroom for any staff to send to each other.   

Warm Fuzzies Lesson

The focus of my lesson centers around kindness. My lesson begins by asking students what is the definition of kindness. I love hearing their perception of “kindness”. After all students who want to share have had a chance I give them the definition of kindness. I use the following: Kindness – the act of going out of your way to be nice to someone or to show a person you care. It stresses to students that kindness is a CHOICE – you do it because you want to. 

We then discuss how kind people think about other people’s feelings – not just their own; they help someone who is in need; and they are kind even when others are not. One way I love to get student engagement is by using them in role plays. I have found that explaining what I mean by using role plays helps students remember what we are discussing and they get a good giggle at the same time. We discuss that kind people never expect anything in return. This creates a really fun role play where I show them what it looks like when someone expects kindness in return for their kindness, but I take it to the max. People who are showing true kindness treat other people kindly because they want to help make someone’s life better. Kindness makes the world a nicer place because it makes people happier.

Students are asked to share examples of kindness, and where they think kindness can be shown. They realize that you can show kindness anywhere and everywhere. Before I begin reading The Original Warm Fuzzy Tale I always ask these essential questions: 

• Should you expect something in return for your kindness? (No)
• Does it cost you anything? (No) 
• Do you have to buy it somewhere? (No)
• Will you run out of kindness? (No)
• Where does kindness come from? (Your Heart)

The main point is you never run out of kindness. 

While reading the story I also have props that help the story come to life. I have two bags as seen in the pictures; the bag on the left contains cold pricklies and the bag on the right contains Warm Fuzzies. I explain that cold pricklies are the unkind things people say or do. Students are then asked where it hurts when someone says or does unkind things. They almost always answer “our heart”. We finish the connection by explaining that every time they say or do something unkind they are giving someone a cold prickly directly to their heart. You see a lot of light bulbs come on! Plastic fuzzies are also discussed. These are explained as backhanded compliments that pretend to be nice but are not.

Once the story is finished we send Warm Fuzzies. I have a completed example for the students to see. The Warm Fuzzies that the students and staff send are made from pom poms and index cards. The pom pom is glued in the upper left corner of the card and who it goes to and who it is from goes toward the top right. Most cards have a printed message such as “You Are Amazing” that students can decorate. Students choose a total of three warm fuzzies to send. I chose three due to the number of students at my school.

I have done this part differently over the years. In the past, I let students send Warm Fuzzy cards to each other, but I made sure all students received at least one Warm Fuzzy so no one was left out. That was a huge undertaking to do in a timely manner especially when I was split every day between two schools.  

Currently, students are encouraged to send them to ANY school employee, daycare staff if they attend daycare, parents/guardians, siblings, bus drivers, etc. Using this method students actually focus more on the core of the lesson which is kindness. They have to think about sending one just to make someone smile. Students love sending them to former and current staff who have made an impact on their life. Staff equally love the surprise. 

Students put their completed Warm Fuzzies in a box before leaving my classroom. I review each Warm Fuzzy to make sure that they do not have anything that isn’t kind. Once the Warm Fuzzies have been cleared, they are distributed.

This lesson means the world to me for a multitude of reasons. It allows students to spread and share kindness in a way that they might not have thought of themselves. It allows them to let people who have impacted their lives know that they did so. This lesson is also a legacy lesson. Back in the 1990s my mom, who is a retired school counselor, also used a similar lesson and she too allowed students and staff to send Warm Fuzzies. Only now is my mom seeing the full impact of what they mean to everyone. Some of my current students are children of some of her former students. When the parents receive/hear about the Warm Fuzzies they share their own memories about when they sent and received them. They even pull them out of their memory keepsakes and show them to me! Talk about making a lasting impact for spreading kindness! To end, I find it fitting to give a Warm Fuzzy to all of you! Thank you for everything you do for students, staff, and families.

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Thank you SO MUCH, Brittany, for this wonderful guest post about spreading kindness using warm fuzzies! I can attest to the fact that they have been around for a very long time, and I hope others will continue to share them. And, if you’ve never heard of warm fuzzies until today, I hope you’ll think about sharing them with your students sometime soon!

Let me know if you do Warm Fuzzy lessons in your school counseling program.

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