Affirmation Bags

At our school, we do a program called Capturing Kids' Hearts. Does anyone else's school do this also? I like the program and a really large part of it is writing affirmations. The students write them to each other as a way of showing their appreciation for one another. Usually one day a week I have my homeroom write affirmations to each other to strengthen the bonds within our little classroom, but I also encourage them to write notes to others within our school community. They love writing small notes to each other! You would be amazed at how sweet these are and even though it takes 10 minutes out of your school day, it really makes a huge difference as far as your classroom climate and mutual respect goes. 

Since I teach 6th grade and the students rotate classes, it was difficult to organize a system where students could "deliver" notes to one another at an appropriate time. I created homemade mail boxes in my classroom so students could leave affirmations for one another.  One of my students' jobs in every class is to distribute the affirmation for their specific class during bell work every day if we have mail.  Since I encourage my students to write affirmations if they finish their work early, we usually always have mail to pass out. Some students even write them at home and bring them the next day to deliver, so cute!

Here's how I made them:

I bought three different colored gift bags from Target. I think they were 99 cents each so it's not like they set me back too much!  I cut off the handles because those weren't necessary.

I then used these "Hello My Name Is" clip art pictures by Maree Truelove (love her stuff!) and created labels for the bags. I didn't upload a freebie for this just because I did pay for the clip art, but I used LD Shelly Script as the font so that you can recreate it. Don't you just love free fonts? 

I used Mod Podge Gloss to adhere the printed labels, but if I had a choice I would have used rubber cement instead. I had to use glue dots to stick down the corners after a few days because it wasn't working so well.

I used washi tape to decorate the tops of the bags as a little decoration and to tie all of the bags together.

I ended up just stapling them to the wall along with class lists so the students would know which bag to drop their affirmations in.

Do your students write affirmations to one another? Is it something you would want to try? Let me know if you do so we can give each other ideas! :)