Random Acts of Kindness

As Atlanta Public Schools is celebrating Random Acts of Kindness Week across the district, Parkside Elementary School held a publishing party for the new, student-authored children’s book about spreading kindness.

Seven students at Parkside Elementary School worked together to research, write, and illustrate Parker Panda’s Adventure of Kindness. The book shares the story of Parker Panda meeting new friends and spreading kindness around the world.

“We went through the writing process, some English Language Arts standards, researched some countries which was really fun, and we put it together,” Tammy Brown, a resource teacher at Parkside Elementary School, said. “I’m excited to see my students excited. When they first received the books,  just to see the looks on their faces was so fulfilling.”

Each student researched two countries from different regions around the world for the book. Jamari Myles had Australia and New Zealand. D’lmani Williams had Ghana and South Africa. Demetrius Beaty had Canada and Mexico. Nyle Lewis had France and the United Kingdom. Miracle Howard researched Antartica and Jamaica. Larry Davis did Japan and India, while Jailen Walker had Peru and Cost Rica.

The students worked with Brown during different breaks in the school day, often during snack time or recess, to work on the project. In addition to writing and editing the story, the students created their own designs for the illustrations they made in Canva.

The original plan was to hand draw the illustrations, but the students wanted to use Canva after learning that Brown used the tool to illustrate her books. Brown taught them the basics of the graphic design tool, “but they went above and beyond and learned elements on their own,” she said.

The finished project was a complete book, published by Studenttreasures Publishing, that expresses the students’ creativity.

“I always thought about making a book, but I didn’t know what to do,” Parkside Elementary fourth grader Demetrius Beaty said. “It was actually really fun designing it too. It was my favorite part because when I was designing it I was just trying to find something really cool.”

The students proudly presented their new book at their publishing party and answered questions from parents and teachers about their experience.

“This is one of our proudest moments, given the students who created this masterpiece,” Parkside Elementary School principal Timmy Foster said. “It couldn’t have been better timing given where we are in the district in celebrating kindness. I want to congratulate Mrs. Brown, the teacher who made all this happen, who has encouraged her students and believed that they could do something like this.”

In addition to this great accomplishment, completing this project entered Parkside Elementary into a national contest with a $5,000 grant as a prize. Parker Panda’s Adventure of Kindness is available on Studenttreasures.