If you are looking for ways to teach kindness to preschoolers in meaningful ways, this list of 30 ideas is exactly what you need. From crafts, activities, books, and lessons, there is a multitude of ideas to sift through to make the perfect week of kindness activities or sprinkle throughout the year. Both teachers and families can benefit from these ideas to help teach the littlest of people how to spread and share kindness wherever they go.
1. Kindness Sunflower
This simple activity is a perfect preschool activity that you can modify with a variety of clipart showing the acts of kindness instead of having the kids write.
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2. Compliment Circles
This free activity gets kids motivated to pick out what they love about their peers. It doesn't require any prep which makes it a favorite to add to your plan of activities for preschoolers.
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3. Play the Friends and Neighbors Game
This game helps kids learn about empathy, emotions, kindness, and more! It's perfect for little hands as they pick a token from the bag to decide which friends they'd be able to help. It gives tiny people the opportunity to practice kindness in a low-stakes way.
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4. Read: Dragons Make Great Friends
This book is a fantastically adorable way to encourage kids to show kindness. Preschoolers will be enthralled with the storyline of creatures big and small who practice kindness and friendship.
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5. Read: Be Kind
Another great story for preschool kids is this book titled, "Be Kind." With a variety of familiar scenarios, kids will be able to experience the effects of kindness with thoughtful text and attractive images.
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6. Movie Time! Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is the perfect pick for little hearts. It's funny, sweet, and most importantly, it has kindness woven intricately throughout. Use pieces of the movie or just stop it at specific moments to discuss.
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7. Put the Kids in Charge
Start your day by asking kids what it means to be kind! Explain it to them in a way they will understand using words like nice, fun, and sweet, and then narrow it down to the word "kind" with an anchor chart and a class discussion.
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8. Pick Flowers for a Loved One
An extremely easy and fun-filled activity kids will love is picking flowers for someone they care about. Take kids to a field or simply bring flowers to "plant" for them in a bin of soil and help them deliver their sweet little gifts.
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9. Thank You Cards/Pictures for a Community Helper
Plan activities where preschoolers can get creative! Helping them create a thank you card for a community helper will allow them the opportunity to understand that kindness can extend beyond their family and friends.
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10. Make Sidewalk Messages
Have preschoolers help you color messages you write on the sidewalk to encourage those around them. Everyone loves an unexpected positive message!
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11. Organize a Food Drive
What better way to teach kindness than by creating a way for kids to give to those in need? Of course, the perfect time to do an activity like this might be around Thanksgiving, but any time of the year is good!
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12. Gently Used Toy Drive
Help kids understand the idea of donating by having them choose one of their own toys to give to donate. This idea works for younger students because since they do not understand the monetary value, giving up another treasure connects a lot better.
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13. Blessings Bags
Young kids may not understand what homelessness is, but they can help you put together blessings bags to give out to those in need. This is a special activity that can start in preschool and become a regular tradition as the kids grow.
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14. It's Hard to Fix a Wrinkled Heart
This illustrative, quick activity is perfect for letting kids see how sad, hurtful words can leave a lasting impression on others. Challenge children to try and smooth the heart back out after it's been wrinkled to really drive home the point.
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15. Free Lemonade Stand
Simple kindness activities come in all shapes and sizes. This one is an adorable idea for preschoolers in a neighborhood or maybe to set up in a lunchroom for teachers. Help kids make lemonade and then hand out free lemonade instead of charging for it.
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16. All About Kindness Inspirational Video for Kids
YouTube is full of helpful videos. This particular video about showing kids what kindness looks like would be a great launch for any lesson you do with your preschoolers. It shows and tells how to be kind in a variety of situations and scenarios. Best of all, it features kids!
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17. Online Story and Lesson Guide: No More Noisy Nights
This sweet story helps teach kids about kindness through conflict by problem-solving in a kind way. Will the main character ever get to sleep? Storyline Online has a ton of helpful features like this one that comes with a printable lesson guide for teachers that can be tweaked to suit the needs of your class.
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18. The Kindness Elves
This imaginative and adorable idea helps teach little ones how to spread kindness through little acts for family, friends, neighbors, and classmates. Similar to the ever-popular Elf on a Shelf, kids seek out the elves and follow the suggestions for kindness left by elves.
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19. Read: Horton Hears a Who!
This classic tale can be paired with discussion questions to evoke the ideas of kindness and humanity that run through its pages. Horton hears what he thinks are people on a flower and works to try to get others to believe him and save their itty bitty invisible town.
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20. We Are Here! Craft
This is a great addition to the Horton story, and makes a statement about preschoolers to remind themselves and everyone that, "A person's a person, no matter how small." Kids will create their own speck to keep the theme of kindness going.
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21. Cookie Kindness
Make cookies and sneak them to friends, neighbors, and family! Acts of kindness are so much fun, but they're even more fun when they're anonymous! Teach kids that they don't have to be recognized or thanked to be kind to others.
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22. Build a Kindness Tree
This display will long outlast the lesson it teaches as kids work towards filling the tree with hearts. Use a heart stencil with preschoolers so they can draw hearts without trouble and then place the ideas on the walls as you complete them.
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23. Deliver Cards/Pictures to Nursing Homes
Sure, volunteering is usually an adult activity, but why not make it a kid activity too? Have kids color pictures, draw cards, and create crafts to deliver to nursing homes. The residents there love to get a spot of sunshine and if you can record them receiving the goodies to bring back to your preschoolers to show them it comes full circle!
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24. Kind or Trash?
Teaching preschoolers the popular themes around kindness is sometimes a little challenging. Having them choose between kindness and trash is a way to simplify the idea. Turn it into a circle-time discussion or simply make it like a game.
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25. The Toothpaste Demonstration
Preschoolers will get a kick out of this activity using one simple ingredient: toothpaste. By demonstrating how toothpaste (our mean words) cannot be put back or unheard, kids will begin to understand that once something is said or done it cannot be undone.
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26. Read: Fill a Bucket
This adorable and classic book teaches kids the concept of kindness through the idea that every person has a bucket that needs to be filled every day.
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27. I Can Be a Bucket Filler Activity
If you'd like to extend the idea of filling buckets, this adorable free and printable activity will help reiterate the story you read.
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28. How to be a Friend Storybook
Teaching littles how to be good friends is the perfect way to exemplify kindness. As they color each page, you can help them by showing examples, talking about, and demonstrating the different ways outlined here.
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29. Read: A Little Spot of Kindness
Follow along with Spot as he teaches little ones how to be kind with friends, and family, in school, and at home.
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30. Create a Kindness Quilt
This is a fun activity that is simple and easy to create. Have students draw images of how to be kind, and then glue them all together to form a kindness quilt that you can display to remind preschoolers what it means to be kind.
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