Free Kindness Printables and Montessori-Inspired Kindness Activities

We’ve done many kindness activities in our family, mainly discussed at my BitsofPositivity.com blog. But we haven’t had a complete kindness unit with kindness freebie pack. So, today you can get links to free kindness printables used to prepare hands-on activities and a new Montessori-inspired kindness pack for our newsletter subscribers’ resource library!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Montessori Shelves with Kindness-Themed Activities

You’ll find Montessori-inspired kindness numbers, letters, and and more (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber) Note: The Montessori-inspired kindness pack isn’t designed as a complete kindness unit but as supplemental materials. I design the packs using realistic images that I’ve often looked for when preparing a unit study (such as font cards and phonogram cards featuring the letter and phonogram related to the theme and math cards with realistic images that fit the theme and can be adapted for math activities at a variety of levels.)

You could mix your kindness-themed activities among your shelves according to curriculum area. Or you could have a special kindness themed area something like the one pictured. My shelves at the beginning of our unit have a mixture of skill levels. Many of the activities can be adapted for a variety of levels. Many of these are designed for early elementary as well as preschoolers. If you’re a homeschooler, just choose the activities that work for your child’s interests and ability levels. If you don’t have room for all the activities you’d like to do, simply rotate them.

Montessori Shelves with Kindness-Themed Activities and Renoir Art Print

Notice the framed art print Julie Manet (also known as Child with Cat) (1887) by Pierre Auguste Renoir. It’s a free download from Wikimedia Commons.

For our monthly featured art print, I purchased a Li’l DAVINCI art frame that opens in the front for easily changing a free art masterpiece printable or vintage illustration to fit with the month’s theme. The frame can be switched from horizontal to vertical without changing the hanger, which is perfect!

If you’re wondering about the rugs and rug box I use, both the rugs and wooden rug holder are from Montessori Services. I love the Montessori Services rugs and rug holder! I used to use an umbrella stand something like these. I loved that for 1-3 rugs, but I needed something different when I had more grandchildren and some projects that needed more than one rug.

Favorite Shelves, Trays, Baskets, and More for Montessori Homeschoolers

I often get asked about the trays, baskets, etc., that I use, so I published a post with many of the items. You can find lots of helpful resources here. They’re not all essential, so don’t feel you need to have everything. Just choose what’s best for your budget and your unique family’s needs. You’ll find more ideas in the Living Montessori Now Amazon shop

Kindness Books for Kids

Even though I have books on shelves, I’m now keeping many of my themed books in a forward-facing display after placing a plant where the themed book basket was before. My seasonal books are now in that book basket.

For toddlers and preschoolers, about ¾ of the books I use are typically Montessori friendly (focusing on reality without smiling or talking animals or smiling or talking vehicles). Themes with abstract concepts like kindness tend to have more books with fantasy and unrealistic images than other themes.

Books for a Kindness Unit

Books on Main Themed Shelves:

Be Kind
The Power of One: Every Act of Kindness Counts (A lovely book! From the Amazon book description: “When one child reaches out in friendship to a classmate who seems lonely, she begins a chain reaction of kindness that ripples throughout her school and her community. One kind act begets another, small good deeds make way for bigger ones, and eventually the whole neighborhood comes together to build something much greater than the sum of its parts.”)
Do Nice, Be Kind, Spread Happy
Children Just Like Me
This Is How We Do It
Children Just Like Me: Celebrations!
Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children (just one of the bucket-filler books. See my bucket filling post at my BitsofPositivity.com blog for more!)

Top Shelf of Forward -Facing Display:

I have a number of the peek-through picture books by Britta Teckentrup. They each have a unique beauty. Kindness Grows is a lovely, thought-provoking book that uses die-cut pages to show a sapling growing into a flowering tree in the pages as kindness is spread.
I like to emphasize Spanish whenever I can. Cheri J. Meiners M.Ed., has a helpful, Montessori-friendly series of books about learning to get along. Many of them are available in English and Spanish as well as in English. For our kindness unit, we have Be Polite and Kind: Ser respetuoso y amable. If you prefer, the book is available in English alone.
The Little Book of Kindness

2nd Shelf:

Inspire Kindness
Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler (a fun book with lots of ideas to inspire kindness)
ABCs of Kindness (There are more kindness books in the series, too.)

3rdd Shelf:

4th Shelf:

Maddi’s Fridge (an inspiring book about chilldhood hunger and helping a friend in need)
Those Shoes
Daniel Chooses to Be Kind (I love Daniel Tiger books for teaching young children about being a kind friend! Also, check out my Daniel Tiger free song series at BitsofPositivity.com about a wonderful book with songs about a variety of topics that will help children become better friends and neighbors.)

Bottom Shelf

Don’t miss the Wonder books for thought-provoking ideas of kindness. They’re available for a variety of ages. You can read about the Wonder books here.
Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen
Each Kindness is a thought-provoking story about missed chances to show kindness.

You can see lots of the books I’ve used and kindness books as they’re published here.

Be Kind Book with Secret Service Kindness Projects

I paired the Be Kind book with some fun secret service kindness projects.

Free Printable: Santa’s Secret Service from The Dating Divas

Free Printable: Summertime Secret Service for Kids from The Dating Divas

Free Printable: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Generic Service Bucket Lists from the Dating Divas

All the secret service activities from the Dating Divas are fun. I printed out the idea cards at half size, so some of them need a magnifying glass … which adds to the fun! I have some of the summertime cards out right now, although I have a Thanksgiving card ready to use soon and Santa’s secret serice activities for December. I’m keeping the cards in a special treasure box on the tray.

The Power of One Book with Kind and Unkind Sorting

Free Printable: Kindness Rules/Kindness Sort by Erin Hagey from You AUT-a Know at Teachers Pay Teachers

The book is The Power of One: Every Act of Kindness Counts.

Manners Matching Cards with Pages from Do Nice, Be Kind, Spread Happy Book

Free Printable: Manners Matching Cards by Wise Owl Factory for Living Montessori Now.

The open book on the easel is Do Nice, Be Kind, Spread Happy.

In the background are some great cultural awareness books and printables! (See below.)

Kindness Salt Writing Tray and Movable Alphabet Spelling

Free Printables: “k” for kindness for salt writing tray (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

You’ll see a variety of simple letter writing trays in my previous unit study posts. I often used the wooden tray from the Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Shapes. You can use whatever tray or container work best for you, though.

The sandpaper letters I use are available in print or cursive.

I typically now use this lovely spelling/alphabet tray from FamilyTreeWW on Etsy. I like it for writing more than one letter or spelling words.

If you would like help with introducing phonetic sounds, introducing objects with sounds, or beginning phonics in general, check out my DIY Beginning Montessori Phonics with Preschoolers.

Work with u_e Phonogram in Include

Free u_e Phonogram Printables

Free Printables: “u_e” in include (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

Free Printable: u-e Sound with Letters from Montessori Soul (made into a booklet)

These activities are very simple to prepare, but they help children remember the phonogram when it’s paired with the unit’s theme. I have a post and video on how to introduce words starting with phonograms, even with very young children (although I don’t introduce phonograms to very young children except in a word like “shark” that can’t be explained as starting with /s/).

Donate Vocabulary and Spelling in Print and Cursive

Free Printables: Donate alphabet cards with (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

These alphabet cards can be used in a variety of ways and work well for an Earth Day or reduce, reuse, recycle theme.

Free Printable: Earth Day ABC Order and Vocabulary Matching by Teach Me T at Teachers Pay Teachers

I used this printable to make a little “donate” flap with the definition under the word. There are many Earth Day words included in the printable, but I just used “donate” today. Any of the words would be appropriate, though, because being kind to the earth also fits well with our kindness theme.

Kindness Addition Activity

Working with Kindness Addition Activity

Free Printable: kindness numbers and symbols (part of my subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber)

I used our ThinkFun Math Dice Chase – “The Fun Game of Mathematical Hot Potato, Invented by a Math Teacher.” Even though the dice can be used for fast math facts games, I just had my 4¾-year-old granddaughter, Sophia, roll each dice and put the number of silver kindness engraved tag beads on pipe cleaners before completing the addition equation with the number cards.

There are lots of the kindness beads in the set, so we’ll be using them for making necklaces, too.

Of course, you can use these cards in a variety of ways for simple counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or greater than, and less than. You can use whatever type of counters you prefer.

Completing an “I saw ______ show kindness today” form for Bucket Filling Activity

Completing an “I saw someone show kindness today” form for Bucket Filling Activity

Free Printable: The Kindness Jar Freebie from The Teacher’s Prep at Teachers Pay Teachers. This is a sweet printable that just says: “I saw ____________ show kindness today by ______________.

My 4½-year-old grandson, Caleb (who lives across the street), has the flu right now. He was visiting me yesterday before Zoey (my just-turned-9-year-old granddaughter) and Sophia came to visit. When they arrived as he was leaving, he told Zoey he couldn’t hug her because he didn’t want to get her sick.

We’re using the kindness notes with the books Fill a Bucket and Have You Filled a Bucket Today? They’re writing notes (or getting Zoey to help them write notes), folding the notes in half, and putting them in our (literal) bucket. When the bucket is full, we’ll have a little party (probably something simple like having popcorn and watching a short video).

Zoey had the first idea when she said that it was kind of Caleb to be concerned about her not getting the flu. She completed the first slip: “I saw Caleb show kindness today by trying to keep me from getting sick.”

There were more acts of kindness later, too! Any of my grandkids can fill the slips out, and I can observe acts of kindness for the activity as well.

We’ll be doing our annual family Christmas food and toy drive during our kindness unit, too!

Cultural Awareness Printables from Little Hands Learn Kindness Unit Study

Cultural Awareness Books with Children of the World Activity and Paper Doll Chain Activity

These aren’t free printables, but they’re wonderful! I love the detailed unit studies from Little Hands Learn! If you like daily scheduling ideas with detailed lesson plans and beautiful printables, you’ll love the Little Hands Learn products! These are from the kindness unit (just a tiny part of it). The children of the world are also available in the 7 continents study.I think Vanessa did a great job of trying to show children as they typically are around the world. For example, the European children aren’t all white, and the African children aren’t all Black.

The circles have outlines in the colors of the Montessori continents, and there are control cards that can be made into booklets as well. There are two sizes of circles and control cards. I used the small circles and cards. I actually printed out the circles at 83% so I could use them with my 1.5″ circle punch (which I love). I put all the control cards into one booklet. If you’re studying individual continents, you might want to use a separate tray for each continent.

Working with Children of the World Activity

Caleb is obsessed with geography activities and really enjoyed this activity! I just used a 36″x36″ piece of blue felt for the oceans and rug combined. My grandkids have worked a lot with geography activities, and this was a simple way to focus on both world maps and globes. For younger children, you might want to use a smaller rectangle of felt for a flat world map. Or you might want to use the felt continents with hemispheres (which you’ll also find in the Kindness and 7 Continents Units from Little Hands Learn).

The felt continents are so much fun, and we’ll be using them with Safari Ltd. animals and landmarks, of course!

The books I’m using here are Children Just Like Me, This Is How We Do It, and Children Just Like Me: Celebrations!

Free Kindness Pack

Montessori-Inspired Kindness Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).

More Kindness Resources

Favorite Books for a Kindness Theme

Friendship Resources (which fit well with a kindness theme)

Favorite Books for a Friendship Theme

Free Friendship Pack

Montessori-Inspired Friendship Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).

If you’d like ideas for calendar-based themes throughout November and December, see my November Themed Activities for Kids and December Themed Activities for Kids.

Wishing you a happy and kind holiday season!

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