Week 5 of this curriculum we are focusing on Kindness and Goodness. I decided to combine the 2 as it was more suitable for my toddler’s age. This week we read one main book for the day, and I had planned an activity that went along with the book’s theme. We mainly focused on Kindness most days and did one or two activities to teach Goodness. I did not try to differentiate Kindness and goodness at this age (less than 3). We mostly talked about what it means to be kind to others. The books we read and loved this week are :
- Chrysanthemum, a story about a mouse who was teased by her friends because of her name, but later learn to be kind to her.
- The Lion and the mouse, the classic age old story of a Lion helping the mouse, who in turn helps the Lion when he is in trouble.
- Who is my Neighbor, this was J’s favorite book this week, anda few weeks since then he had memorized the book and loved reading it to us now. This is a toddler version of the Good Samaritan sorry from the Bible.
- One good Deed, how one kind action from a little boy transforms the whole neighborhood into a community that helps one another.
- Somebody loves you, Mr Hatch , Mr Hatch transforms into a different person when his friends pay him a little attention and makes him realize that he is loved.
- Have you filled a bucket today, a really practical book to teach kindness and how our actions can affect others around us, including ourselves.
MEND BROKEN HEARTS WITH KIND WORDS
Storybook for the activity : Chrysanthemum
We read the story Chrysanthemum before we started the activity. The story is about a mouse who had the name Chrysanthemum, who was mocked for her name at school. Whenever she was mocked, she wilted into her shell. But when a unique teacher shows kindness towards her, the classmates begin speaking kind words to Chrysanthemum, she begins to heal and become more confident.
The activity we did was pretty simple. I cut a heart out of a red construction paper, and asked J to crush it everytime Chrysanthemum was teased. The result was a crumpled and broken heart. And then we used band-aids to try to fix the broken heart. We observed that even after using many bands -aids, we could not completely fix the heart. I told J that once we hurt someone, it is very hard to fix it. Only God can fix the heart perfectly. But we can still show kindness when we see someone who is sad.
FILL MY BUCKET – STICKY WALL ACTIVITY
Storybook for the activity : Have you filled a bucket today
This was such a perfect book to explain the meaning of kindness and what it means to hurt other’s with our words or actions. I have detailed this activity in this post. Going through this activity, we went over different examples of kindness and bullying . It can be a great resource to teach them right vs wrong.
DISTRIBUTE CARE PACKAGES TO NEIGHBORS
Storybook for the activity: One good deed
One good Deed is about a boy starting a chain of good deeds in the neighborhood. The neighborhood flourishes and becomes a close knit community that helps one another, all because of the small gesture that the boy showed that he cared for his neighbor. This story reminded me of the 5 loaves of bread and 2 dishes that the little boy shared with Jesus, and it was enough to feed 5,000 people.
As we read this book, I explained how a small action of kindness can help us make many friends. For the activity, we packed some snacks in Ziploc bags and added a note in each one, just something to say that we were thinking about them. Then we headed out and guided J to place them on the front porch of our neighbors. J added one more step and knocked on the doors, it was really cute to watch him so excited to share his snacks. It made this Mama’s heart so full.
It was even more wonderful when we got back similar snack package from one of our neighbors we distributed. We were pretty new to the neighborhood, and this made us feel welcome in such a special way.
KINDNESS RIPPLE EFFECT
Storybook for the activity : The Lion and the mouse
The story is so well known to us adults as we have all have heard it one time or another in our childhood. The Lion who spares the life of the mouse was a really big at of kindness, and when the mouse saves the Lion by chewing on the hunter’s net, he was repaying the kindness that was shown him.
The concept of the activity is to teach your kid that bigger the act of kindness, the bigger effect it can have on this around us – the ripple effect. To explain this, I had to show J what a ‘ripple’ means. We headed outside and filled our biggest Sensory bin with water. I had in my hands toys of different weights – from a small plastic circle to his biggest construction truck. I gave one toy at a time, from the lightest to the heaviest. As I kept increasing the weight of the toys I gave him, I showed J how the waves or circles of water becomes bigger, and those were called ripples. In the end, we threw a rock into the water, and J said ‘WOW! Big ripple mumma!’. He got it!!
I then linked it to kindness, how we can be kind to others and they will be kind to someone else. And the more kind you are, the bigger that effect week be on others.
COLORFUL LEMON STAMPS
Storybook for the activity : Who is my Neighbor
This storybook was an instant hit with J. It might be because it was all about colors. I loved that the story is similar to the Good Samaritan sorry from the Bible. The story is about 2 colors – blue and yellow living in 2 separate cities, and have been taught not to interact with each other. But when one of the blues were in need of help, his blue friends did not help him, but a yellow (called Lemon) helped him and they became instant friends. And the 2 futures came together because of Lemon’s act of kindness to his neighbor.
For the activity, we did a small craft using lemons. I cut the lemon in half and it’s awesome if the lemon is dried before hand for better prints. Take some finger paints on a paper plate, and ask your toddler to stamp different colors using the lemon. The picture that came together at the end was so beautiful, and I showed how pretty it can be if different people can be kind to each other.
GOODNESS ACTIVITY
We did not do a lot of activities specifically on goodness, other than read stories out of his Jesus storybook Bible. This was one activity we did during J’s snack time.
We each had a banana and I asked J to paint faces on them. Before peeling them, we talked about how different they look from each other. And when wet opened them, they had some bruises inside of them. I talked about how only God can tell how good a person is on the inside(our hearts). So God knows if we are good or bad, even when we lie to others around us.
