Have you ever celebrated a week of kindness in your classroom? Every year, one of the most important things I wanted to emphasize in my classroom is how we treat one other. And so our “Week of Kindness” was born! I love spending a whole week emphasizing and incorporating kindness into our school day. We also talk about how important it is for us to be true to ourselves and kind to ourselves – and to let others be themselves.
I’m so excited to share with you my favorite ideas for Kindness Week… get ready to do a Week of Kindness in your classroom!
Kindness Week Activities
If you’re ready to get started with spreading kindness in the classroom, then a week of kindness is the best way to do it. There are lots of ways to structure a week of kindness so don’t get overwhelmed! Sprinkling in a small kindness activity each day — such as a craft, a book, or an anchor chart — can be a great place to get started. And there are so many fun choices for week of kindness activities, you can choose the kindness activities that call out to you.
Let’s start with some whole-class activities that will get all your students involved! These are fun, engaging ideas you can weave into your class plans all week long to keep your students excited about kindness week.
Kindness Bingo
Kindness bingo is one of my favorite ideas for kindness week. It is a great opportunity to give students concrete examples, and then spur them into action to try some out! Encourage students to notice when someone else does something on the bingo board. At a certain time of day, students can share what they noticed and you can color squares in on the chart – then sit back and see how many class bingos your students can get during the week!
Kindness Paper Chain
A Kindness Paper Chain is another fun kindness activity to encourage kindness in the whole class. I tell the students that every time they see someone being kind, we can add a link to our chain. At the end of the week, we’ll count up the links and they’ll be counted as gems for our gem jar! They are so excited to see how long they can get it, and it’s a huge source of excitement.
It’s fun to have students share what they’ve noticed (and of course you can share acts of kindness you’ve noticed as well!) at a certain time of day, so you can add the links together as a class. Then stretch it out at the end of every day to see how long it’s gotten!
A Good Friend
Discussing how to be a good friend is another great activity for a week of kindness. Invite students to come up with things a good friend does and doesn’t do. (Pro tip – this exercise can be pulled out later in the year to refer back to whenever friendship troubles start up!)
Kindness Week Crafts
Bringing the arts into the classroom is one of my passions – so of course I’ve got some super fun artsy kindness week activities elementary students will love! Crafts will also help students think independently about the kindness ideas you’re discussing together during your kindness week.
Kindness Crowns
These kindness crowns are a great kindness craft to do with your class to kick off kindness week. I love that these crowns help students think about how they want to be kind and to set a goal for it. These are also super simple, just color, cut, and staple. I’m all about crafts that are low-prep for teachers – we have so much going on!
Student Notes
These student notes will spread so much happiness and friendship in your classroom! Invite students to write kind notes to one another. You can have them set up little mailboxes for one another, or you can be the deliverer. (I like to deliver them just so I can double check the contents before the receiver gets their note.) Students will love giving these kindness notes just as much as they love receiving them!
If you’re worried about everyone receiving one, secretly ask a student or two to write notes to specific people for you. Students will love being asked to be special helpers, and this ensures everyone is getting a positive note from a classmate.
Be A Bucket Filler
Have You Filled A Bucket Today? and its sequel, How Full Is Your Bucket? For Kids, provide such a clear visual for how our words and actions affect others. I love that these books emphasize that our own happiness increases when we make others happy! You can pair these books with this fun craft activity for your class. Students brainstorm what actions would fill other people’s buckets!
How To Be a Good Friend
This craft is a great way to encourage students to think independently about specific ways they can be a good friend to their classmates. Flipbooks are such a fun craft, so of course I wanted to throw one into our Week of Kindness plans!
Week of Kindness Books
There are so many great book ideas for kindness week. I like to do a lot of talk and modeling around the words “inclusive”, “accepting”, and “friendly”, and we talked about how they’re all parts of being kind. Especially during the first couple days of our week of kindness, I made sure to model, notice, and correct examples of these words in action. These children’s book helped me make these ideas more explicit, and helped guide deeper discussions about how empathy, inclusivity, and acceptance should play out in our classroom and at school.
Kindness Is My Superpower
A simple and relatable book that explains kindness in cute and understandable ways for children. After reading this book, you can create an anchor chart with your students to help them brainstorm ways they can be kind at school. A great one for your week of kindness.
Each Kindness
This haunting book brings home the power of our choices and their effects on others. Students empathize both with Maya as she is left out at her new school, and with Chloe’s feelings of guilt over excluding Maya. You can guide students through a discussion of what Chloe could have done differently, and what they should do if they see someone being excluded.
Spaghetti In A Hot Dog Bun
This book definitely helps students to explore empathy and choices. I love that you see the other side of the “bully”, allowing for discussions about how students labeled as “bullies” have feelings and struggles just like the rest of us. This book also offers the opportunity for a great discussion of how important it is to be yourself and to let others be different and true to themselves.
Tomorrow I’ll Be Kind
This book teaches students different words that are positive attributes. These words — such as kind, generous, helpful — can be referred to throughout the school year as a helpful reminder for students of how you expect them to behave in class. You can also use this book to help students set a goal – tomorrow I will be ______, and have them choose one of the words.
When To Do Your Week of Kindness
What I love about doing a week of kindness is how genuinely excited the students get about spreading kindness and noticing acts of kindness. I find that having explicit conversations about how to treat one another and talk to one another is crucial to create behaviors that are helpful and positive.
Kindness week activities are definitely popular during the month of February, as many schools have a Week of Kindness or Kindness Challenge around the time of Valentines’ Day. But you can do them literally any time of the school year and see amazing benefits! Here are some ideas of when you can use them:
- During the first few weeks of the school year
- World Kindness Week in November
- When you come back from a long break
- Random Acts of Kindness Week in January
- Kindness Month in February
- Anytime your class needs a little extra dose of kindness!
I highly recommend doing a week of kindness when you come back from the summer or a break (or really anytime!). It’s a great way to spread some such good vibes and happy energy.
You can also pick and choose from these ideas and sprinkle them in throughout the year, rather than dedicating doing a whole week of kindness activities. Revisiting what it means to be kind again and again is the key to making kindness a permanent part of your classroom culture.
Are you going to try a Week of Kindness in your classroom? xoxo Laura
You may also be interested in reading:
The Best Activities To Build Classroom Community To Try Now
5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas
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5 Must-Try Classroom Routine and Procedures Ideas - Love Grows Learning
July 20, 2021 at 5:16 pm[…] Week of Kindness […]