Renewing Faith in Humanity

I teach Kindergarten. There is a very well known book called “The Kissing Hand.”  The story of a young raccoon who must leave his mom and begin his new adventure at school.  The raccoon was very scared.  His mom unfolded his paw and kissed the very center.  “There.” She said. “Now when ever you start to feel lonely you just remember that you’re carrying my kiss with you.”

I typically read this story to my class sometime during the first week of school.  After the store is complete each child gets a turn to come up and get their own kissing hand.  I use small heart shaped stickers and gently push one onto each child’s palm.  After the entire group had received their sticker and gone off to play there was one little boy still lingering in the book area.  Quietly he came up to me, removed the sticker from the palm of his hand, opened my fingers and as he gently pressed his sticker onto my palm he said, “You need a kissing hand, too.”