Early years activity: World Kindness Day

Spread a little kindness! World Kindness Day is a lovely opportunity to help children explore what it means to be kind, caring and thoughtful towards others. This simple activity encourages children to recognise kind actions and think about the little things they can do to make someone else feel happy, included and cared for. 

World kindness day learning aims

• Develop an understanding of kindness and caring for others 

• Recognise and talk about kind actions and how they can make people feel 

• Develop empathy by thinking about the feelings of others 

• Express their ideas, feelings and experiences through words, gestures, drawing and creative activities 

• Build positive relationships with other children and adults. 

Resources you will need for this activity

• Large paper and pens  
• Colourful paper leaves, hearts or handprints. 

World Kindness Day activity outline

• Before the activity, create a large tree shape on a wall, large sheet of paper or display board; this will be your Kindness Tree 
• Talk to the children about what it means to be kind. Adapt your questions to their age and stage of development, for example, “How can we help someone?” or “What could we do to make someone feel happy?” 
• Encourage children to share examples of kind actions, such as sharing a toy, helping a friend, giving someone a hug, helping to tidy up or checking if someone is OK 
• Provide colourful paper leaves, hearts or handprints  
• Encourage children to draw or mark-make a kind thing they have done or would like to do. Adults can scribe children's ideas where needed 
• Build your Kindness Tree by inviting the children to add their leaves to the tree to create a colourful display that celebrates kindness throughout your setting 
• Throughout the day, look out for kind actions and celebrate them as they happen. Be specific about what you noticed, for example, “I noticed you gave Sam a turn with the truck. That was kind because you thought about what Sam might like” 
• Invite families to share a kind thing their child has done at home. Celebrate these with the children and add them to your Kindness Tree or create a separate display celebrating kindness at home and in the nursery.

Ideas to extend this activity

• Kindness challenge - create a simple list of kind actions for the children to try throughout the day, such as helping to tidy up, sharing a resource, saying thank you or helping a friend 

• Kindness stories - read a story about friendship, helping or caring for others. Talk about the characters' feelings and the kind things they did. 

NDNA products to help you with this activity

• Promoting Positive Behaviour – online course

Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials must always be appropriate for children’s age and stage of development.