Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

Every teacher wants to help their students learn to be kind. But it can be hard to know where to start when talking about kindness in the classroom. I find that crafts about kindness are one of the most effective ways you can teach your students about kindness.

Kindness crafts are a fantastic resource because they are a fun activity that students will want to do, they can be pulled out any time you need them, and they really do help reinforce kindness. Now, there are so many ideas for crafts about kindness, it can be very overwhelming. Luckily, I've done the work for you and rounded up the very best kindness crafts I could find.

Read on for the 10 best crafts about kindness for the classroom… I've even listed a children's book about kindness you can read to your class for each craft!

(Looking for some kindness activities that are ready to print and go? Check out my Kindness Activity Bundle right here.)

This post may contain affiliate links. I make a small commission when you make a purchase using my links.

Crafts About Kindness

Before I dive into my favorite crafts about kindness, here are my top tips on how to use these to the best effect in your classroom:

• Choose a clear teaching point
• Pick your timing
• Make it fun

The very best kindness crafts should have a clear teaching point. Yes, we want them to be fun and cute. But the most important part is helping our students get a better understanding of kindness. The kindness activities I pick for my students are always chosen with a clear intention.

For example, let's say I'm noticing that students are using unkind words with each other. Then I'll choose an activity that gets students to think and practice kind ways of speaking. Or, if I'm seeing a lot of competition and arguments, I'll look for a craft on kindness that focuses on patience and flexibility.

Timing is important too. Sometimes I'll choose to do a whole Week of Kindness if I feel that we need a really hefty dose of kindness in our classroom (read this post to find out how to do a Week of Kindness in your classroom)! Other times, I'll just sprinkle in one of my favorite crafts about kindness on a specific topic whenever I see the need.

Finally, it's important that it not feel like a lecture or a punishment. Students will get so much more out of it if it's a fun break from academics. After all, crafts about kindness should be fun, right?

Kindness Crafts To Try

Okay, without further ado, here are my top 10 favorite kindness crafts! I've included the specific teaching point that I think they would be great to use. I'm also going to list a children's book about kindness that would be absolutely perfect to pair with each kindness craft. (Want to see all my favorite children's kindness books? You can shop my favorite books on kindness here.)

Notes To Classmates – Spreading Kindness

This is the perfect way to get kind vibes spreading all over your classroom. In this craft about kindness, students write kind notes to give to other students. You can make these available for students to grab and write on their own Or, you can assign students other students to write to in order to make sure everyone gets a note.

The kindness children's book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? would be a perfect companion to this craft.

Kindness Rocks – Spreading Kindness

If you're a teacher who loves hands-on, crafty projects, then this is perfect for you! Painting kindness rocks is a kindness craft your students will absolutely love. Pair this craft with the kindness book A Small Kindness.

First, help your students think of kind phrases that would cheer people up. Then let them paint their rock with the phrase and decorations. Finally, hide the rocks around the playground for kids in other grades to find and keep! This is one of the best crafts about kindness for practicing generosity as well as spreading kindness.

Bucket Filler – The Effects of Kindness

This craft for kindness is perfect for emphasizing the effect that kindness can have on all of us. The bucket metaphor is one that students can immediately grasp – when someone is kind, it fills their bucket, but when someone is mean, it dips their bucket.

If you've never checked out the book How Full Is Your Bucket? you definitely need to add it to your list! It's always on my list to read to my class year after year.

Kindness Crown – What Kindness Means

The word “kindness” gets thrown around all the time, but there are lots of other fantastic words that go hand in hand with kindness. I like to introduce students to our “WOW words” – like generous, inclusive, helpful, flexible, etc. Talking about these traits helps students understand how to be kind. Plus, you then have a list of wonderful adjectives to use when noticing your students and positively reinforcing their kind behavior.

Weaving in a crown craft is a great way to learn about and celebrate these WOW words. This is one of my favorite crafts about kindness because it ends with something students can wear! Always a big hit.

The book Tomorrow I'll Be Kind describes many of these important words, and it would be a perfect companion book for this kindness craft.

Class Quilt – Friendship

Creating a class quilt is a wonderful way to display your students' commitment to kindness in your classroom. First, students decide how they want to be a good friend. Then they trace their hand and decorate their square of the quilt. Finally, display these in your classroom on a bulletin board!

I Walk With Vanessa is a story of friendship and kindness. This is a great book to have students brainstorm ways to be a kind friend.

Kindness Bingo – Putting Kindness Into Action

This kindness bingo board is one of the most fun crafts about kindness! Throughout the week, students try to complete the kind acts on their boards to get bingos. You can celebrate bingos with a sticker or a small class cheer. (If you want a full class activity version of this, I have a class anchor chart version you can check out here.)

The children's book When We Are Kind helps students reflect on the effects of kindness. It would be a wonderful companion to the kindness bingo craft.

Kindness Cootie Catchers – Putting Kindness Into Action

In this fun kindness craft, students create cootie catchers with kind actions inside. When they play with a friend, whatever kind action the friend lands on – they have to do that! A great way to make kindness into a fun game.

A book that would be wonderful to go with this craft is Be Kind. It helps demonstrate the importance of kind acts every day.

Friend Flipbook – Friendship

Being a good friend is a skill that students are working on at school just as much as the academic skills. Teaching explicit ways to be a good friend helps students in their social life, but it also helps your classroom run smoother. Students are friendly to one another can work well together, making partner and group activities much more successful.

Finding crafts about friendship are an important piece of your crafts about kindness. Friendship and kindness are so interwoven, and it's such a big part of classroom dynamics.

Each Kindness is a poignant children's book that really gets students thinking about the effects of their actions and behavior towards others. It will help them examine whether they are being a good friend to other students who are in need of a friendly word.

Kindness Flower – Acts of Kindness

In this craft for kindness, students write down acts of kindness on the petals of a flower. This helps students think of different ways to be kind throughout their day.

Class Kindness Rainbow – Acts of Kindness

Students brainstorm acts of kindness and add it to a handprint cutout. Make sure you pass out handprints in all the colors of the rainbow. When you put the handprints together in a display, they make a beautiful kindness rainbow! For a larger rainbow, invite students to make more than one handprint.

Read Kindness Is My Superpower with this craft about kindness. It will help students brainstorm different ways they can be kind throughout the day.

Crafts For Kindness

These crafts about kindness will help fill your classroom with positivity and happiness. It's no secret that when students are treating each other kindly, schoolwork and teaching is easier for everyone. Finding time in your week to slip in a kindness craft and book here and there will have undoubtedly have a positive effect on your classroom.

If you're looking for enough kindness activities to use throughout the year or to do a kindness unit, check out my Kindness Activity Bundle. It includes 10 printable craft templates, 5 anchor chart templates, and 5 days of lesson plans with companion books.

Which craft are you excited to use? Let me know in the comments!
xoxo
Laura

Resources For You

Articles For You

11 Fantastic Week of Kindness Ideas To Try In Your Classroom

How To Create A Positive And Supportive Culture In Classroom Communities

The Best Activities To Build Classroom Community To Try Now

10 Growth Mindset For Kids Activities Your Students Will Love

The post Crafts About Kindness You Need To Try In Your Classroom appeared first on Love Grows Learning.

This article is all about activities to build classroom community!

In a rush? You can check out my Classroom Community Builders MEGABUNDLE on TPT right now:

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How To Build Classroom Community

There certainly isn’t one correct answer for how to build community in the classroom. But over the last 9 years of teaching, I’ve developed a way that works for me every time. When I start to think about my classroom community and the classroom culture I want to create, there are three pieces that I find to be the most important. Here’s my magic recipe if you want to learn more about how to build a classroom community:

1. Back to School Classroom Community Builders: Use classroom community builders that help students feel seen, included, and celebrated during first few weeks. 
2. Rules and Routines for Classroom Community: The way these are established are going to have a big impact on how we build classroom community as a group. 
3. Build Classroom Community with Kindness: Having explicit discussions around treating each other with kindness is important for establishing a positive classroom community. I find it’s helpful to revisit these conversations throughout the school year.

Let’s dive into each one of these and I’ll share some specific activities to build classroom community!

Back to School Classroom Community Builders

Back to school season is the perfect opportunity to think carefully about how to build community in the classroom. The activities you do during the first few weeks of school are an important part of setting the tone and helping students feel safe and happy in their new space. Here are some of my favorite activities to build classroom community during that back to school time:

First Day Feelings

Talking about our feelings on the first day of school can be especially helpful to start building classroom community. Starting a new school year is a lot to process! It’s always a good idea to have some first day of school activities that help students feel safe in their new classroom environment.

On an anchor chart, write or draw some different feeling emojis (happy, nervous, excited, sad, etc.). Lead your class in a discussion about how feelings are normal and everyone’s feelings are different. (“First Day Jitters” and “A Tiger Tail” are two great book choices to read with this activity)

Give every student a sticky note to write their name and let them put the sticky note on the anchor chart next to the feeling that they most identify with.

Heart Maps

Creating heart maps is another activity to build classroom community at the beginning of the year. Share with your class some things that are important to you in your life and add them to your heart map. Then have each student create their own heart map filled with the things that are most important to them. Displaying these can help students get to know each other, and it can help you learn about the passions and interests of your students.

Friend Scavenger Hunt

Make a checklist for students that includes items like “A classmate who has two younger siblings” or “Someone who has the same favorite color as you” or “Someone who went to a different school for kindergarten than you”.

Students then go around the classroom trying to find a student’s name to write next to every item on the list. This gets them walking around, meeting new people, and talking to each other! This is definitely one of my favorite activities to build classroom community!

You can snag this Find a Friend Scavenger Hunt for free right here!

Celebrating Names

Celebrating names is a wonderful way to help students get to know each other at the beginning of the year. Also, it provides an opportunity to promote inclusiveness and respect between students from different cultures. Reading the book “Your Name Is A Song” is one of my favorite activities to build classroom community. I love these bookmarks to go with it!

Reach for the Stars

If you are looking for a gorgeous bulletin board for the first week of school, look no further! This display celebrates the goals that students have, and helps establish a community of learners.

These resources and more are available in my First Week of School Activity Bundle!

Rules and Routines for Classroom Community

Establishing your classroom routines and rules is a key part of building classroom community. Every classroom needs routines and procedures to create a structure that children can learn and participate in. And of course, teaching classroom rules is a huge part of classroom management. Classroom rules help children feel safe. Therefore, introducing them thoroughly and revisiting them often is so important to build classroom community. Here are some of my favorite ways to introduce those oh-so-crucial classroom rules and routines!

Class Promise

First, Lead your students in a discussion about what a great class should look like, sound like, and feel like. Then, consolidate all of their ideas on an anchor chart. Finally, have children decorate a handprint, heart, or cutout person of themselves to go around the class promise, sealing everyone’s pledge to one another. I like to display the class promise in the classroom for the whole year, as a visual reminder of the classroom community we committed to.

Classroom Routine and Procedures Visuals

Providing clear visuals that students can refer to every single day is such a helpful way to reinforce your classroom routine and procedures. There are so many gorgeous classroom decor ideas out there to give you lots of inspiration for how you could do this in your own classroom!

For example, anchor charts are great activities to build classroom community because they involve the whole class and create a helpful visual.

Classroom Material Flipbook Craft

Crafts are another way to teach these important skills. Emphasizing care and respect for the classroom environment is an important part of building classroom community. This craft helps students learn how to care for their classroom materials.

Classroom Rules Flower

Crafts are great activities to build classroom community! This craft is a fun and engaging way to introduce your classroom rules. Each student contributes a square of paper with something they’re committed to trying. Then take all the squares of paper and put them together to make a class display. 

Classroom Map

Helping students students feel at home in their new classroom can help them feel like part of their classroom community. A classroom map can help students learn where everything is.

All these resources and more are included in my Routines and Procedures Activities Bundle!

Build Classroom Community with Kindness

Every year, I make sure that kindness is set as a standard for how we treat one another in the classroom. Encouraging kindness between students is hugely important if you want to build community in the classroom. Here are my favorite classroom community builders that really help to make kindness an everyday expectation.

Bucket Filler Chart

The book “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?” provides a helpful metaphor for kids to understand the importance of how we treat one another. Reading this book can help inspire students to be a part of building classroom community by being a “bucket filler”.  Another fun activity idea is to have students brainstorm ways they can be a “bucket filler” at school and record them on an anchor chart.

WOW Word Wall

One of my favorite ways to build community in the classroom is by creating a WOW Word Wall. First, we talk about words that are important to our classroom community. Some examples might be “kind”, “respectful”, “helpful”, or “patient”. Then we post them on our WOW Word Wall. After that, I am constantly on the lookout for students exemplifying the words we discussed. Throughout the day, I take time to acknowledge what I noticed them doing, and then they get to place something special next to that word. You could use a sticker, or a star – I like to use these beautiful plastic butterflies. Later in the school year, I turn it over to the students, and they get to be the ones who acknowledge their classmates doing great things.

Kindness Chain

This is a fun and easy way to promote kindness in your classroom. Have a time during the day when students can share ways that their classmates were kind to them. For every kindness that gets shared, add a colored strip of paper to a paper chain. My class always loves to see how long the chain becomes!

Kindness Bingo

If you’re classroom community is needing some help, this can be a fun activity to get things back on track. Create a kindness bingo board with different acts of kindness in each square. As you notice students doing the activities, they get to color in a square on their bingo board. I like to make it a challenge to see if the whole class can reach a certain number of combined bingos so that it doesn’t become an individual competition.

Kindness Shout-Outs

Another fun way to build classroom community is to create a way for students to leave each other positive notes or messages. Shout-outs, positive notes, or compliments can be made available for students to fill out and give to other students. Some teachers even set up student mailboxes for these to be delivered! (Make sure to personally check notes before they are delivered to ensure that they stay positive.) 

To get your hands on these kindness crafts and resources, plus many more, check out my Kindness Activities Bundle!

I hope you now have lots of ideas for activities to build classroom community! Spending time with your students to build relationships and community is always worth it! 

Which activity are you excited to try out with your students? 
Xoxo 
Laura

Resources you may be interested in:

Other articles you may be interested in:

21 Amazing Ideas For Activities On the First Day of School

Week of Kindness

5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas

10 Powerful Community-Building Ideas

The post The Best Activities To Build Classroom Community To Try Now appeared first on Love Grows Learning.