Instead of heading to recess, some Quinn Elementary School students spread kindness throughout their school.

Last Wednesday and Thursday, students could opt to head to a special “kindness station” set up at the school’s community room instead of recess

It was one of several ways the school community is celebrating the Great Kindness Challenge. The one-week event challenges schools across the country to complete a “checklist” of kindness tasks, like holding the door open for someone or helping a teacher with a task.

At the kindness station, students built friendship bracelets to share with their friends, emoji faces featuring friendly emotions molded after fellow students, and colored banners and positive phrases to highlight kind messages.

“It’s just to promote kind actions throughout the school, so students have kindness for others and have kind things happen to them,” explained school outreach worker Tiffany Martin.

At the emoji creation station, fourth graders were busy creating the smiling faces of their friends.

“We’re making designs of our friends with smiling faces,” noted fourth grader Nikolas Droukas as he showed off one of his designs.

At another station, students created a “kindness bridge,” out of a wooden bridge designed by Dartmouth High School students. Quinn students added positive messages written on popsicle sticks to the structure.