When you were a kid, do you remember learning about character traits, such as being kind? I don’t remember these concepts being explicitly taught in my schooling, and I don’t think I’m that old yet! Teaching kids character traits and qualities such as kindness, honesty, responsibility, and respect is such a valuable and important part of education.
One of my favorite books about building character with kids is called What Do You Stand For? For Kids: A Guide for Building Character by Barbara A. Lewis. I’ve had it for years. It’s kind of old (from 2005) but I still refer back to it because the book is packed with excellent ideas! It covers a lot of areas such as honesty, safety, respect, citizenship, cooperation. It would be a very helpful book if your school uses PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) or focuses on a character trait of the month. The author also has a Teen Version, that I also found helpful and used to use when I worked with older kids.
I have a very creative lesson on kindness to share with you today that was written by School Counselor Mrs V. Be sure to follow her on instagram! She uses this lesson for grades K-1 and I can’t wait to try it out with my kids!
Kindness Lesson featuring Edgar the Egg 🍳
This has been my favorite lesson to do with the littles!
I start off by reading a book on kindness. A Little Spot of Kindness by Diane Alber is my current favorite.
We do a quick recap of the different ways we can show kindness.
I then say something to the effect of: “Well friends, today I brought a special friend of mine. He’s feeling pretty sad today and I said you know what, why don’t you come with me to (teacher’s name)’s class? I promise they’ll be able to make you feel better!”
I then show Edgar and ask the class if he’s up at the top of the water or down at the bottom. Then I explain that he’s sinking in so much sadness, and I need their help to make him feel better. I then go, “do you think you can help me?” All the kids nod their heads!
I bring out the other jar (the one that has the salt in it) and say “okay, we are going to try to build a new world for Edgar, one that’s full of nothing but kindness! I have my kindness sprinkles here and every time we say or do something kind for Edgar, I’m going to sprinkle a little bit of kindness in!”
This is when I start to take volunteers and every time a student shares, I sprinkle in some kindness.
Once you have enough volunteers, I say something like, “Okay, I think that MIGHT be enough, what do you all think? Do you think that’s enough kindness?! Let’s give it a try!!”
I carefully scoop Edgar out of the plain water and slowly drop him in the new world. All the enthusiasm is needed here! 🤣 It builds the suspense!!
At the end, I wrap up the lesson encouraging students to think about how they can add kindness to their classmates’ world and families’ world.
The kiddos love Edgar. Kids say things like “I love him so much.” I hope your students love this one as much as mine do!
More Kids Books on Kindness
I love the Little Spot Books too - I just got this emotion book box! Here are some other great books on kindness, that could be a nice companion to this lesson are
Because Amelia Smiled by David Ezra Stein – I don’t see this book mentioned much but I absolutely love it! It is a simple but important story about the impact a smile can have on a community.
Bucket Filling is always a popular concept to teach kindness! I’ve used this many times over the years. I like to start with Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud - the basic concept is that by treating others with kindness, it fills up others’ happiness bucket, and our own, making the world a better place. And How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath could used as a follow up.
Do Unto Otters by Laurie Keller is such a cute book and I love the illustrations! The book goes over the golden rule of treating others (or otters) the way you want to be treated.
You can also watch this How to be Kind and Caring social story video before the lesson.
What are your favorite books or activities to teach kindness? Let me know in the comments below, or send me a message on instagram or facebook!
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