Teaching Kindness at Christmas
I absolutely love Christmas. Even though it can be a stressful time, I think it is a holiday that has the potential to bring out the best in people. I really wanted to focus on spreading kindness during the Christmas season with my students.
This past week, we discussed ways that we could spread kindness to others.
We Can Light Up the World With Kindness
After creating a list on the board, I passed out a lightbulb to each of my students that I printed on colorful Astrobrights paper.
The students were so sincere. Many of them wanted to donate food or toys. Some of the students said that they would stand up for others if they were being bullied.
These lightbulbs make a great bulletin board display. I decided to hang mine across my ceiling with clothespins. By using a variety of Astrobrights colors, it really brightened up my room. I especially love Celestial Blue™, Solar Yellow™, Terrestrial Teal™, and Gamma Green™.
I am really excited about this next activity. I have it all set up and ready to go for when we return to school after Thanksgiving Break.
The Gift of Kindness
I printed and displayed 15 presents on my dry erase board. (One for each day from Thanksgiving Break to Christmas Break.)
I used five different colors of Astrobrights paper for the presents. (Lunar Blue™, Orbit Orange™, Pulsar Pink™, Gravity Grape™, and Martian Green™)
Each day, I will remove one present, and we will complete the “kindness activity” on the back.
We will be making cards for soldiers, sending cards to a nursing home, making and giving treats to the staff at school, and much more. I know the students will love completing the activities, and we can discuss the gift of giving.
You can download these FREE activities HERE.
I would love to hear how you will be spreading the gift of kindness this holiday season.
Thank you to Astrobrights for sponsoring this post.
Thank you for these wonderful ideas and freebies.
Hi, I’m trying to download the free kindness activities but I can’t. Can you please send it to me.
Were you able to get to the Teachers Pay Teachers site for the free download?
No the link to TPT isn’t working
If you click on any of the pictures, it will direct you to Tpt. Here is the direct link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Gift-of-Kindness-2885029
Hope that helps 🙂
I love these ideas!! Every year I have one of Santa’s elves sent to my class who needs some guidance on how to behave. (My take on the elf on the shelf) but this year my class is a little rowdy and that idea could backfire. I’ve been brainstorming ideas all break of how our elf could help us spread kindness these next few weeks. I’ll definitely be adding these two activities to my list. Thanks for posting. Have a wonderful Advent season.
Is there a book that you read to help explain this activity to your students
LOVE this idea-thanks so much! However, I am unable to download it. Please let me know when you get a chance to fix the link. Merry Christmas!
The just checked the link and it works on my end. Here is the direct link though if that makes it easier. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Gift-of-Kindness-2885029
Thank you for sharing! Can’t wait to use these!
Hello! I love this idea, it’s such a great way to celebrate the season. Quick question, I notice that the picture in your blog and in the packet shows the presents without numbers, but the presents include numbers of days in the packet. I’d like to print them on fun colored paper and create a fun pattern like you did, but with the numbered days, I won’t be able to mix up the pattern. Instead it will go one color, three at a time. Do you have a copy without numbered days or a suggestion on how to print so that I can create a fun pattern? Thanks!
So true! Thanks so much for bringing this up. I just added an additional version to the packet that allows it to be printed on 5 separate colors and it will create the pattern for you 🙂 Hope that helps.
Super cute idea!!!! Thank you so much for sharing!!!! What are kindness snowflakes?
We are just going to write nice comments on snowflake shapes and hang them around the school.
Cool idea!!! 🙂
I love this as well but am unable to pull it up. I tried both links you provided. Thanks!!
Here is the direct link to my store. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Gift-of-Kindness-2885029
How can I get the printouts for this? I love these ideas!
Here is the link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Gift-of-Kindness-2885029
What did you do for day 9? What’s a kindness snowflake?
We will be writing kind and encouraging words in snowflakes to hang around the school.
I would love to have this but when I download it from TPT it is pages of nothing but text.
Can you send it to me another way?
Thanks
We you able to open the zipped file. Inside of the zipped file, there are two separate files. One is an editable text page for you to create your own kindness activities. The other one has the pictures and the rest of the file. If you still can’t get it to work, I can email it to you.
Thank you so much for the wonderful ideas. I wanted to tweak a couple of the ideas. What font did you use for the acts of kindness?
It’s called KG Neatly Printed.
What kind of things did you make for school staff ?
So far, we have written our custodians a letter on chart paper as a class. Yesterday, I gave each student a piece of decorative Christmas notebook paper from Target, and they wrote reasons why they love our principal. We will be making cards for the office staff today.
THANK you so much for sharing this wonderful idea! I was planning on doing the EXACT same activity using the lightbulbs and I’m so happy I found you through Twitter. This is perfect for my fourth graders!