Integrating kindness activities for preschoolers into your lesson plans is the most effective way to teach young children the importance of compassion. These hands-on activities help children build empathy, form positive relationships, and develop essential social-emotional skills.
Compassion is a fundamental quality that children need to learn early on so they can show respect to their families, teachers, and peers while growing emotionally, mentally, and socially. In this article, we provide actionable teaching strategies and kindness activities you can seamlessly introduce into your childcare program.
What is kindness in early childhood?
Kindness in early childhood means doing helpful, generous, and considerate things for others without expecting a reward. It is a foundational social skill that helps young children build positive peer relationships.
The American Psychological Association defines kindness as “benevolent and helpful actions that are intentionally directed toward another person.” Being kind requires being helpful, empathetic, generous, and considerate. You can help your preschoolers understand kindness by explaining that kindness means showing care for their friends, families, and teachers through simple, everyday actions.
Why is kindness important for preschoolers?
Kindness is important for preschoolers because it directly benefits their mental, physical, social, and emotional health. Cultivating a culture of compassion early on sets the stage for lifelong emotional intelligence.
Teaching your preschoolers to be kind can make your classroom more inclusive and promote positive behaviors that help children avoid conflicts and feel accepted by their peers. When children perform acts of kindness for others, this helps them form vital social connections and focus on other people's needs, which ultimately increases children's overall sense of well-being.
Activities Across Developmental Domains
A free guide with activity ideas that foster child development across developmental domains.
How to teach kindness to preschoolers
You can effectively teach kindness to preschoolers by modeling empathetic behavior, acknowledging kind acts, and providing structured opportunities for children to help others. Try these actionable strategies in your childcare program:
Encourage children to help others
Assigning classroom jobs is a practical way to give preschoolers daily opportunities to show kindness by helping their teachers and peers. Helping others is a fundamental way that your preschoolers can learn compassion in action.
Assigning your preschoolers jobs, such as passing out materials or feeding the class pet, gives them an active role in contributing to an organized environment. Classroom jobs help children understand how being kind to one person can benefit the entire group.
Acknowledge kind and unkind behaviors
Acknowledging and responding to both positive and negative behaviors in real-time teaches children how to be kind and how to correct unkind actions.
For example, if your preschoolers do something kind, such as sharing their toys or supplies without being prompted, you can acknowledge the kind act and praise them for it (e.g., "Thank you for sharing your crayons with James. That was very kind of you").
If your preschoolers do something unkind, such as calling someone a rude name, you can acknowledge the unkind behavior and give them the opportunity to correct it (e.g., "It isn't kind to call our friends names. You hurt Destiny's feelings. What can you do to make her feel better?").
Demonstrate kindness daily
Children learn by observing others and imitating what they see, meaning educators must consistently model the kindness they wish to see.
For example, you can thank your program's custodial staff for cleaning your classroom or loudly thank other teachers for assisting with an activity. When preschoolers observe your kindness toward others, they will imitate your behavior in the future and show kindness to their friends, teachers, and families.
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5 engaging kindness activities for preschoolers
You can actively help your preschoolers learn to be kind by including structured kindness activities in your daily curriculum. A tool like brightwheel's lesson plan feature enables you to easily create curriculum, log observations, and share progress with families.
Below we’ve included five practical activity ideas to provide inspiration for your lesson plans:
1. The "Toothpaste words" object lesson
This activity uses a tube of toothpaste to visually teach children why they need to use kind words and think before they speak. For this activity, you'll need a small tube of toothpaste, a plastic spoon, and a paper plate.
Instructions:
- Give each child a small tube of toothpaste, a plastic spoon, and a paper plate.
- Ask the children if they think they can get the toothpaste back into the tube after it has been squeezed out. Most of your preschoolers will believe they can.
- Have the children squeeze all of the toothpaste onto the paper plate.
- Have the children use a plastic spoon to try to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Your children will quickly realize that it is impossible to reinsert the toothpaste.
- Explain to the children that the toothpaste is like hurtful words. Just as it's impossible to put the toothpaste back into the tube after it's been squeezed out, it's also impossible to take back hurtful words after they've been said.
2. Read stories about kindness
Reading stories provides a great starting point for discussing kindness by introducing preschoolers to characters and scenarios that highlight the consequences of kind and unkind behaviors.
Some highly recommended books that you can read to your preschoolers include:
- The Kindness Book by Todd Parr
- Tomorrow I'll Be Kind by Jessica Hische
- Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor
- Do Unto Otters: A Book About Manners by Laurie Keller
- Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller
3. Create kindness greeting cards
Creating art for others is an excellent, hands-on way for children to actively show kindness and empathy. For this simple activity, you'll need construction paper and markers.
Instructions:
- Help your preschoolers trace their hand on a piece of construction paper.
- Ask your preschoolers to name five ways they can care for others.
- Use a marker to write each of your preschoolers’ answers in one of the finger shapes.
- Have your children give their cards to their families or mail them to a local retirement center as gifts to the residents.
4. Draw uplifting sidewalk art
Sidewalk art allows preschoolers to explore their creativity while making uplifting art that the whole community can enjoy. You just need a safe outdoor space and some colorful chalk.
You can have your preschoolers use chalk to draw pictures on the sidewalk outside your childcare program. You can also help your children write positive and uplifting messages on the sidewalk for passersby to see. This activity is a great way to show your preschoolers how small acts of kindness can brighten someone's day.
5. Host daily compliment circles
This activity teaches preschoolers how to confidently give and graciously receive compliments from their peers.
Instructions:
- To begin, have everyone sit in a circle with their legs stretched out in front of them.
- Ask for a volunteer to say another child's name and compliment them.
- Have the child who received the compliment say "thank you" and then pull their legs in to sit criss-cross. This will signal to the class who has already received a compliment.
- Continue around the circle until everyone has given and received a compliment.
Frequently asked questions
Q: How do you explain empathy versus kindness to a preschooler?
A: Empathy is understanding how someone else feels, while kindness is taking action to help them. You can explain this to preschoolers by saying empathy is feeling sad when a friend scrapes their knee, and kindness is bringing them a bandage.
Q: What is a simple daily kindness routine for a childcare program?
A: A simple daily kindness routine includes greeting everyone by name, using a "kindness jar" to count good deeds, and ending the day with a compliment circle. These consistent practices help children make kindness a habit.
Final thoughts
These activities and strategies are simple ways to instill positivity, kindness, empathy, and compassion—qualities that will help your preschoolers succeed in every aspect of their lives. It may take time for your children to fully grasp these qualities, but consistent practice yields incredible results.
By praising and reinforcing your children's kind behaviors, you can help them understand the impacts of their kindness and encourage them to be kind and considerate to others in the classroom, at home, and in their communities.
