Kindness…how often and how well do we show kindness to others? Sharing this fruit of the spirit with our little ones will help them to care for others. Also, sharing instills in our little learners empathy and putting the needs of other before their own. How do you teach acts of kindness to your little ones?
Valentine’s Day is a great time to emphasize showing kindness to others because they will see it everywhere. Their friends will pass out Valentine cards at school. They might pick out a sweet gift for their teacher, or maybe grab some flowers to give to mommy. Kindness is being modeled by so many on this one special day.
For our Mommy and Me lesson we discussed and explored ways to show kindness by leaving “heartprints” behind. First, we sang songs about kindness with our heart lights. I picked them up from the dollar store. Then, we read the book, Heartprints by P.K. Halliman, which models how little ones show love and kindness to others. After reading, we had fun with a few stations that helped us explore ways to leave heartprints with others.
Acts of Kindness
The first station was a great way to engage little ones and their families. There were cards and hearts with ideas of different acts of kindness to show others placed on the table. From giving hugs to our friends to writing a thank you note to the garbage men, there were a variety to choose from, as well as, coming up with our own. Everyone picked 5 acts of kindness and wrote them down on their Be Kind page to use as a reminder to show kindness to others.
Sweet Treats
The next station was a SWEET and simple way to leave a heartprint with someone. The little ones filled a snack sized baggie with hugs and kisses and created a cute and sweet treat to give to others. I made sure to provide enough materials for the little ones to take a few with them.
Snack Time
Leaving heartprints behind can make little ones hungry, so might as well have a snack to keep the them going. All we needed were some heart shaped cookies, vanilla icing and a few sprinkles to let the kindness out (and probably a bit of a sugar high)!
Sensory Fun
There were two activities for the little ones to explore their senses while learning about kindness, heart bird feeders and sensory bottles.
To make the bird feeders, we bent a pipe cleaner to create a heart shape and filled the pipe cleaner with Cheerios. Once the pipe cleaners was completely full we twisted the top of the heart and tied on a ribbon to attach it to a branch in outside. Showing acts of kindness to God’s creations count, too!
The next sensory activity was geared for the littlest learners in our group…sensory bottles. To create the bottles I filled small water bottles with red water by using food coloring and added glitter and heart confetti…DONE!
Kind Cards
The last station had paper, stickers, markers and more for the kiddos to make special cards with. If giving someone a card was on their acts of kindness sheet, they could easily create that card during our time together.
You can grab all of the materials needed for this lesson in my TpT store. This packet includes songs, station labels, lesson ideas and more!