24 Random Acts of Kindness for Kids
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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I like the list of Random Acts of Kindness for kids. My one issue is with picking flowers. I have been trying to teach my children of the beauty of nature and that it should be left for everyone to see. So picking flowers is actually unkind. How do you feel about that? Is it too strict?
I agree that we should not pick all the flowers or there will be none left to enjoy. My grandkids and I make flowers out of paper and give a lasting bouquet to a friend. 🙂
I don’t think it’s to strict at all. When all my children were younger they would always pick the Rose’s off other people’s bushes. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings so I planted a bunch of yearly flowers they could pick and bring them to me. I kept my Rose’s off limit’s only because of the thrones, one thing about Rose’s is a good trick to remember, when you see a flower that looks dead don’t cut it off. Just remove all the petal’s and it will regrow another one. I hope this helps. Oh PS, one more helpful hint is a walk in a Woody’s area where there are weed’s that look like flowers, younger children don’t know the difference, They just want to see their Momma smile.
I love this list of fun and giving ideas! Pinned!
I love this list! I am going to print it and hang it on my fridge and in my classroom.
My boys and my students are working on completing Random Acts of Kindness and I wrote a blog post about it! I also started a linky party. I would love if you would link up with us.
http://www.learningahoy.com/2014/12/random-acts-of-kindness.html
Caitlin