kindness Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

This post contains affiliate links.

Kids often think that they can’t do things to help others. They may think that they aren’t old enough or big enough to do something. This kindness activity looks at how big actions and small actions have a ripple effect. I bet the lion in the book The Lion &the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney didn’t think when he was able to spare the life of the mouse that it was a big thing. He probably was glad the mouse didn’t think about it that way. His small act of kindness had a big effect on the life of the mouse. That act inspired the mouse to help him in a time of need.

Kindness Activity

This wonderful kindness activity uses an experiment to illustrate that the simple act of dropping an object causes a ripple effect. The ripple may be small or large depending on the object. Just as our acts of kindness can be large or small. They too will have an effect or a ripple in the life of another person. The impact of that act of kindness can make someone’s day better or change how they treat others.

Experiment

When you gather items for this experiment, you will want to select some things that have the following attributes.

Small
Large
Light
Heavy

Then will need to fill a container with water. We used a cake pan for our experiment. If you have a pie plate, bowl, or saucepan you would like to use that would be fine.

Observing the Impact

Each of the objects will cause a ripple in the water when it is dropped. Some will cause a big splash when the are dropped into the water. All of them will cause the water to move as it is displaced by the object.

What you will want your children to notice is that they all cause a ripple effect! Something happens to the water when the object is placed in it.

Discussion

Once your children have seen the ripple effect, take some time to talk about the effects of kind acts on others. Simple things we all can do like saying thank you or holding a door open for someone can have a ripple effect.

Here are some other kindness activity ideas that you can do with our children:

If you like the book The Lion and the Mouse, here are some more kindness themed books:

A Sick Day for Amos McGee
Frog and Toad: A Complete Reading Collection
Please Don’t Tease Tootsie
I See Kindness Everywhere
Horton Hears a Who
The Kindness Quilt
Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler
Because Amelia Smiled
Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids

Toddler Approved is hosting a wonderful project called the 100 Acts of Kindness Project. I love the idea of JDaniel and I doing things for others between Jan. 15th and Valentine’s Day. Each week she puts up a challenge for you to complete as some of your 100 Acts of Kindness.

This week’s challenge was to give kindness to siblings. JDaniel doesn’t have siblings. There are times when he has said he would love to have a younger brother or sister to play with. There are times when I wish we had given him a sibling but, that wasn’t meant to be.

JDaniel asked me about why many of his friends and relatives have siblings and he doesn’t last fall. I tried to explain why we only have him. He seems to understand why.

JDaniel decided after that conversation that he has been given something just as special. He informed me that he was given friends and cousins to love just like brothers and sisters. Friends are welcomed with hugs. Cousins are talked about often. JDaniel truly cares deeply for these surrogate siblings. They are a very special part of his life.

When it came to this challenge, JDaniel came up with what he wanted to do all by himself. He wanted to make Valentine’s Day cards for his friends using the salad spinner just the way we made the cards we gave to his teachers in the first Acts of Kindness Challenge. He loves pushing down on the salad spinner to make the watered-down tempera paint fly.

While I cut the paper into card-size pieces and watered down the paint, he gathered the salad spinner and a golf ball. Once everything was ready he wanted to do all the creating himself. He put the card stock into the salad spinner and place the golf ball in. The paint had to be dumped in without any help and of course, the spinner had to be spun by him alone.

When the cards were done, we laid them out to dry before adding felt sticker hearts to them. He was thrilled with the results and couldn’t wait to share his gifts of brotherly love with his friends.

If you too have an only child, I hope you will find surrogate siblings for them. It is not just like having a sibling, but it does teach them to learn to get along with and care for others. It would be an act of kindness for them.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s AlphaThursday.