In kindergarten we read the following story:
Warm Fuzzies
and Cold Pricklies
Once upon a time there was a village. All of
the people in the village got along very well. There was kindness, love,
compassion, and justice. Every person in the village owned a special
bag. It was given to them by their parents at the age of 3. Inside
this bag were hundreds of warm fuzzies. Warm fuzzies were soft, cuddly,
cottony little puffs. When you gave someone a warm fuzzy, they felt warm
and fuzzy inside. People in the village gave each other warm fuzzies anytime
they wanted to let someone know they were loved. When someone received a
warm fuzzy, they put it in their bag.
One day, an evil sorceress came to town. She
saw that everyone was giving out these warm fuzzies from their bags and she
didn’t like it. She went up to one villager and said, “Why do you keep
giving away your warm fuzzies? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to run
out? Here, take this bag of cold pricklies and give these to the people
in your village instead, and keep all your warm fuzzies for yourself.”
The villager took the bag because he believed the sorceress’ tale. The
next time he ran into a friend, he handed him one of the cold pricklies from
his new bag. A cold prickly made someone feel cold and prickly inside, like
they were swallowing a pin cushion. Soon all the villagers went to the
sorceress and asked for their own bag of cold pricklies since they didn’t want
to be the only people handing out warm fuzzies if everyone else was going to
hand out cold pricklies. Once you had a cold prickly, you wanted to give
it away to someone else as fast as possible.
The sorceress was pleased. Her plan was
working perfectly. Now the village was in a state of fear and
panic. Everyone started avoiding everyone else so they wouldn’t be given a
cold prickly. People hoarded their small supply of warm fuzzies and
didn’t give them out to anyone anymore. But no one was happy anymore
either.
One day a prince arrived in town and almost
immediately someone handed him a cold prickly from their bag. The prince,
recognizing the cold prickly, refused to take it. The villager was
surprised and tried again. The prince handed the person a warm fuzzy from
his bag. The villager was surprised, and a little ashamed that he had
tried to give this warm prince a cold prickly and instead received a warm
fuzzy.
The prince addressed the crowd and said, “Why do
you give each other cold pricklies?” One villager said, “Why should we
give away all of our warm fuzzies? Shouldn’t we keep them for
ourselves?” Other villagers agreed. But the prince said, “Every
time you give away a warm fuzzy a new one is created in your own bag.
Don’t you see? The more you give away, the more you will have.”
To demonstrate, the prince had everyone put down
their bag of cold pricklies and retrieve their bag of warm fuzzies from their
homes. He asked everyone to take out a warm fuzzy from their bag and hand
it to a neighbor. This they did, but warily. Then the prince told
them to notice that they all still had the same amount of warm fuzzies in their
bags as before. People started giving away more warm fuzzies and noticed
their bag was never empty. There were indeed enough warm fuzzies for
everyone.
The sorceress was very upset and tried to interrupt
the prince and get everyone to give out cold pricklies again. But the
villagers didn’t want to listen anymore. They threw all their bags of
cold pricklies into a wagon, set the sorceress inside it, and sent her out of
town.
The villagers realized they’d learned a valuable
lesson:
“When you give someone a
warm fuzzy, they in turn will give it to someone else. Eventually, it
will come back around to you.”
To help them connect to the story, we brainstormed a list of what actions we do that make others feel warm & fuzzy and what actions we do that make others feel cold & prickly. Then I gave each of them a warm fuzzy to keep in their pocket or their shoe to help remind them how to treat others throughout the day.
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