5 Creative Distance Learning and Online Kindness Activities for Kids

Teaching character traits online isn't something we're used to but there are many kindness activities for kids that can be used during distance learning sessions. 

Teachers all over the globe have had to come to terms with a new way of teaching since many had to work with their students online during COVID-19. The term distance learning was heard a lot as teachers and kids had to adapt to teaching and learning at home. 

Disrupted routines caused a lot of anxiety for many families and impacted teacher wellbeing as they struggled with technology, a different timetable, and a new way of teaching.  

After such a long time away from class, many students struggle to engage, keep their emotions under control, and connect with their peers. This makes social-emotional learning vitally important to build character traits and social skills to help kids connect and for classroom management.

That's where teachers and parents can use kindness activities for kids as they create feel-good emotions to improve emotional wellbeing and feelings of inclusion.

Though most kids and teachers are back in the classroom, online learning is here to stay. Many regular lessons now include digital activities to keep their lessons varied and engaging. 

Below, you will find 5 kindness activities for kids to help you build emotional intelligence, encourage kindness, and to help build connections. They are a mixture of online activities and good old-fashioned printables that can be sent home if required.

1. Kindness Checklists

Our checklist is one of our most popular kindness activities for kids. It has been used by thousands of students but during the lockdown, we realized our traditional list needed some tweaking to include an editable component for online learning!

The checklist includes 4 categories for independent work - Kindness at School, Kindness at Home, Kindness in the Community, and Kindness with Adults but students can also collaborate on a "kindness mission" where they work together to come up with and complete kindness ideas. 

These checklists are a great way to encourage caring and thoughtfulness. When they work on kindness at home, it encourages kids to get to know the people in their family better by considering what they like and how they could do something nice for them. If they're unsure what to include for each person, they can do some sneaky investigation to discover things that make each person happy!

If students have access to a computer they can use the Google Slides file where they can type their acts of kindness into the template and fill the stars with color when they complete each one. The sheets can also be printed out and colored in. 

If students don't have access to a computer, teachers can print out sheets to send home for them to fill in manually. We'd love to see some of the ideas kids come up with so please send us through some photos.

2. Family Kindness Ideas Poster

This is a fun idea! Kids create a poster with acts of kindness their whole family can participate in. They can ask each member to contribute some ideas to include and work with a sibling to design it together. It can be created manually or digitally. Whatever works for each family! 

A variation on this is to grab a nice big jar, write your kindness ideas on slips of paper and pop them in. On the weekend, grab a slip from the jar or select a good deed from your poster. Do the act of kindness that's listed together as a family.

Here are some examples:

Use our free posters with kindness ideas for kids and adults to get lots of fun ideas for your posters or jars. 

3. Kindness Coloring Pages

Don't think there's much value in coloring pages? Well, they're actually great for physical and emotional development. So good, in fact, that we even have a post dedicated to the benefits of coloring. 

Children can print and color our ready-made pages or create their own on Google Slides using a range of elements ready to copy, paste and resize on their design. They can then add their own kindness quote and print their artwork to add some color. This is a great opportunity to get kids thinking creatively while practicing a range of digital skills. 

To extend the activity, teachers can ask their students to create a personalized coloring page for another student in their class that can be downloaded and forwarded to them electronically.

If you just want a few pages to print and color, then grab these freebies!

4. Hug Coupons

Now that kids can get up close and personal with people outside of their home, our hugs coupons have made a comeback!! You can download our own ready-to-print coupons but how about getting your kids to create some of their own? You can use ours as an example and we'd love you to submit your kids' creations for us to add to this post!

Children might even like to pop some of their handmade coupons in the post to share with friends and loved ones!

5. Compliment Coupons

There's nothing more heart-warming than a genuine compliment and the world could certainly do with more positive vibes right now! Making their own coupons to compliment others is a fun way to get kids thinking about the positive characteristics of the people in their lives. 

Create a simple table where kids list the people they want to acknowledge across the top. Under each person, they can write the positive thoughts they have about each one. This becomes their checklist as they set to work with their paper and pencils.

Show them a copy of our compliment coupons to give them some ideas but ultimately they'll want to customize their own to suit the people they're recognizing. 

Once their coupons are completed, they can send them in the mail, take a photo holding them and share on social media or hold them up during a facetime chat.

Please send photos of your coupons here!