This lesson is a guided introduction to Mr. Rogers Day of Kindness. Students will create a vinyl sticker for their laptops, staff will assist in the design and fabrication of their sticker. This activity is for both a virtual and in person class.
Students will accomplish the following:
Safety Note: SHARP BLADE – The vinyl cutter blade can cause serious injury. Only trained individuals should operate the machine.
Computer with internet access
Design software (Inkscapes, CorelDRAW, ect.)
Vinyl Cutter + materials (vinyl, scissors, weeding tools)
Transfer Paper
Vinyl Cutter vector software
The instructor will introduce Mr. Rogers and talk about 143 Day of Kindness in PA. Students will be asked to look through the website and talk about what kindness means to them.
Once you have welcomed the students, give them a brief explanation about Mr. Rogers and what we will be doing today. Here are two videos to show students
Linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVtGpz_baoA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtSzREbUolQ
After the videos have students go to the website for 143 Day of Kindness in PA
Linked here: https://143day.dced.pa.gov/
“1-4-3 or I-Love-You. From the City of Brotherly Love to the birthplace of Fred Rogers, America’s most beloved neighbor, Pennsylvania is a place where kindness and gratitude to those who make up our community is part of who we are. That’s what makes PA such an incredible place to live.
Fred Rogers regularly used 143 as his special code for “I Love You” – based on the number of letters in each word. From today forward, the 143rd day of the year is #143DayinPA-a day when we encourage our residents to share the acts of kindness and good deeds they do for each other.
In times of uncertainty, simple acts of kindness mean the most. Help us reflect on how grateful we are to have each other and promote your kind acts now by sharing on social with #143DayInPA! Let’s all do our part and help Pennsylvanians feel the love. Happy #143DayInPA!”
Inform students that today we will honor Mr Rogers in a Day of Kindness by making 143 vinyl stickers that will remind us to always be kind.
Students will explore Inkscape and start designing their 143 laptop stickers.
Make sure to have several different designs of the 143 cutting out on the vinyl cutter for students to view or an example for them to hold.
Have students open Inkscape. Allow students 5-10 minutes to create and explore with limited or no guidance from the instructor.
Save the file as “STUDENT NAME” and “143 STICKER”
Set up the document to the size of the vinyl cutter
Have students create their own simple design using 143 in the artwork.
(the noun project is recommend if using outline from computer)
In this example we will start with a basic heart shape. This will act as our background and make our sticker easy to apply.
Next we will make our top layer, a slightly smaller heart. This will be our red vinyl.
Using align and distribute tool center the top heart over our background heart. You can use the Edit paths by nodes (N) tool to adjust the points to evenly fit around the heart.