There’s a lot of talk right now about kindness. I see little Be Kind messages on signs, Instagram and t-shirts. The “Year of Kindness Calendar” keeps kindness top of mind all year ’round as families or classrooms of kids select one of the 16 themed backgrounds to place on the magnetic activity board from fall leaves and ocean shells to ice cream cones, umbrellas and donuts–my favorite for any month! Reach unto the Be Kind bag for four tokens with goals for the family or class to complete that month. The activities to show kindness are in 4 categories, day-to day activities like paying attention to others’ feelings and help them feel better, kindness to others like sending get well messages to children in a local hospital, kindness to the earth by using cloth napkins and kindness to myself by watching a favorite funny movie. Blank tokens are for customizing your activities. Encouraging notes with further kindness suggestions are easy to tuck in a backpack for daily reminders, and Be Kind sticky notes can be left behind with a thoughtful message. The activity journal helps kids, parents and teachers spread kindness throughout each day. Each month kids answer reflection questions, “Why did you choose this kindness habit?” or “How do you think these kindness acts impacted the people around you?” These questions are fantastic for class discussion or family times to increase emotional learning, build emotional vocabulary and spread some love!

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