In today’s post Sara of Happiness is Here shares a printable list of 24 random acts of kindness ideas perfect as an advent activity list for your family, or simply for everyday use.
I don’t know about you but I LOVE the festive season. I start getting excited in September (I know, I know, I’m one of those people!). I love the whole atmosphere around the holidays. Everyone seems happier. When you’re out and about people wish you a ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy New Year’. The shops, streets, and houses are decorated beautifully. There is excitement in the air! What’s not to love?
Around this time of year there is a LOT of focus on getting presents. Everywhere you go people ask your children ‘what do you want from Santa this year?’, or ‘How many more sleeps until Santa comes?’ In our family we like to try to turn the focus back to giving and generosity as much as possible. We emphasize spending time with family, enjoying each other’s company, giving to others, and helping those around us. This year, I thought what better way to do that than by involving the kids in some random acts of kindness!
As always, I came to them with the idea first. I asked them what they thought about doing some nice things for other people, and they were both excited. They immediately began coming up with ideas of how they could make people happy.
‘We could pick some flowers and give them to people!’
‘We could give you a foot rub!’
‘I know! We can make cupcakes for our friends!’
The ideas kept coming and coming. We finally decided on what our first act of kindness would be: writing messages on the sidewalk with chalk for passersby. We get a lot of kids walking to and from school past our house and they wanted to write some things that would make them smile.
We went out early one morning, before school starts, and they got straight to work.
Miss 5 drew a smiley face and wrote the word ‘smile’ underneath.
My 3 year old asked me to write ‘good morning’ for her and then she drew a picture of a sun next to it.
As they worked they thought about what they were doing and why. I heard lots of comments of ‘this will make them happy’ and ‘they will like to read this.’ Miss 3 drew a few more pictures and then was done, while my 5 year old stayed for longer writing more messages like ‘have a nice day’, etc. She really enjoyed herself.
We are going to be doing more random acts of kindness leading up to Christmas and so I’ve made a list of ideas that are suitable to do with kids that you can download for yourself! You can stick it on the fridge and pick one at random whenever the mood strikes. Or, you might notice there are 24 ideas so you could even cut them up and use them as activity ideas for your children or family’s advent calendar. Whatever you do, I hope that you enjoy them!
Or download these Acts of Kindness for Kids Tags…
To download and print: Click on the Random Acts of Kindness image above to download. To print, you may need to select “Fit to printable area” (or similar) depending upon your printer type and local paper size.
I am curious, how do you focus on giving and generosity with your children during the festive season?
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Sara is Mum to three little girls. Her family have adopted a 'natural learning' approach to home education and they spend their days playing, making art, asking questions, getting outside, meeting up with friends, and having fun living and learning together.
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